


The Second Side of Light

by scapegrace74



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 17:31:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 33
Words: 43,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14140992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scapegrace74/pseuds/scapegrace74
Summary: In 1845, circumstances throw Fox Mulder and Dana Scully together as they cross the Oregon Trail.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first novel-length work of fiction. It is inspired by my twin passions for The X-Files and history. While the names and dates for historical characters are based in fact, I took some creative liberties to make the story work. Likewise, the background and description of the journey were researched, but not exhaustively. Don't cite me in your academic papers!  
> I owe an enormous debt to the writers of historical AU whose work I have enjoyed for years: SunflowerseedsandScience, akajake, Lollabegood, and especially Prufrock's Love.

Independence, Missouri, April 16, 1845

It was unseasonably warm for mid-April, but that simply meant that the two young women had muddy petticoats and their boots sunk into the soft ground as they made their way to the post office.

“I told you it would be difficult to obtain a guide once we got here, Dana.  By the time folks arrive in Missouri, they’ve already organized their groups.  It’s not as though there are trustworthy men just laying about, waiting for employment that will take them to the far edges of the continent.”

“One hurdle at a time, Missy.  First, let’s find out if there will even be someone expecting us, if we strike off for Oregon Country.”

“Fate would not be so cruel as to deny us our request, after all we have been through this past year.”  Melissa Scully’s forehead creased as she considered the fickleness of cosmic mishap.   Her sister, pragmatic and forthright from a young age, shook her head.  “Fate has nothing to do with it, Missy. Getting word of our mother’s passing to our uncle on the other side of the continent is fraught with difficulty, and the probability of success is low.”

“Exactly.  Fate.”  The elder sister smiled triumphantly.  She turned pensive again, as she considered their lot.  The sisters had hunkered down in a drafty rooming house in Baltimore over the winter, taking in laundry to supplement the paltry inheritance they had received upon their mother’s death.  A good portion of that inheritance had since been spent on travelling by train and boat to Independence.  And so their present circumstance bordered on the desperate, although neither had the disposition for panic.

As they spoke, they stepped up off the filthy street and onto the newly built wooden sidewalk.  The Independence post office was a stately, red brick edifice with an elaborate portico, as though the United States government was making a deliberate show of its might and civilizing influence, here on the very edge of its dominion.

Inside, a long line of citizens waited their turn to speak to the one harried postman whose wicket was open.  The stone vaulted room echoed with dozens of conversations in as many languages and dialects.  Since the westward overland trails had first come into being over the course of the previous decade, the number of Americans who dared to make the half-year odyssey to the western frontier had started as a drip, merged into a stream, and was now swollen to a torrent.  In the summer of 1843, a wagon train of nearly one thousand pioneers had left from this very town.

Still, it took a particular kind of person to decide to leave the relative safety and civilization of the twenty-six states and head off into the great unknown.  Many were poor, and looking for better prospects.  Others were daring, and looking for adventure.  A substantial minority were outlaws or opportunists who saw the absence of authority on the frontier as a chance for easy flimflam.

Arriving finally at the wicket, Dana asked for any general delivery mail in either of their names, then held her breath as the spectacled factor with a prodigious mustache dropped off his stool to search the storeroom.  After an interminable time, he returned with a battered brown envelope, the ink smudged and corners peeling.  Thanking him profusely, the sisters rushed to a quieter corner of the high ceilinged room and carefully opened the desiccated paper.  Dana took hold of a one page letter written in a bold, flowing hand, while Melissa examined the enclosed money order.

“He’s invited us to come stay with him at Fort Vancouver for as long as we need,” Dana sighed in relief.

“And he’s sent us one hundred dollars.  Is that enough?”

“It will be tight, but since we won’t be setting up a homestead when we arrive, there are many items we can do without.   The fort is apparently very well provisioned.”

“So now we need a guide.”

“Now we need a guide.  And a wagon.  And some livestock to pull it.”

“Father always said you were as stubborn as a mule.”

“Missy!” she laughed as they exited the post office, stepping around a tall young man as he entered.

*******

Fox Mulder made haste towards the post office singularly focussed on one aim.  It had been a few weeks since the beginning of the spring thaw in Missouri, which meant the first mail from New Mexico should be arriving any day.  As he mounted the steps of the building for the third time this week, two young women were emerging, deeply engaged in conversation.   The shorter of the two, with a petite frame and striking auburn hair, let loose a burst of laughter rife with self-mocking delight and he found himself standing still at the building’s ornate doorway.   Observing the pair closely, it was apparent they were sisters, and while the taller one was no doubt considered the family beauty, with her china doll skin and regal bearing, it was the mirthful woman who drew his attention.  There was a certain air of self-possession about her, as though she did not need the world to tell her what she was worth.

Mulder shook his head in frustration.  He had no time to be concocting romantic notions about strangers on the street.  He needed to continue his search for Samuel, which meant striking out within the next week or so.   Women, even arresting ones, were a distraction and an invitation to heartache besides.

Stepping into the busy public hall, he waited in line, passing his time observing the diverse crowd.  Most of the people waiting were emigrants and only using Independence as a staging post for their journey.   He sized up each group and assigned them a likelihood of reaching their destination.  It was an amusing, if morbid, way to pass the time.  The migration routes to the West claimed many victims, mostly through disease, starvation and unfortunate accidents.  His mind returned to the auburn-haired woman from before – was she a would-be settler as well?  He hadn’t recognized her, and surely he would remember someone so striking if she made up the relatively small year-round population of the town.  No, she must be with a group of settlers.  He wanted her to be one of the lucky ones. 

Before he could scold himself for waxing romantic again, he reached the front of the line and asked for any general delivery mail in his name.  To his utter delight, the postman handed him an envelope postmarked in Santa Fe.  He tore it open and read it standing in place, the crowds swelling and parting around him like waves.  A sigh of disappointment: the outfitter in Taos Pueblo had made inquiries of the trappers as they came in for their winter provisions, but none had heard of a man named Samuel Mulder.  He tucked the letter into his inner jacket pocket, and briefly touched the diary that always rested there.  If Samuel couldn’t be located in Oregon Country or Texas or New Mexico, the next place to go looking was California.

*******

_September 10, 1835_

_Dear little brother,_

_Knowing how you hate to be called Fox, and yet refusing to call you by a name that is equally my own, I must find alternate ways of addressing you.  Today I arrived in Independence, Missouri.  Despite its name, it’s a young town on the lower reaches of the Missouri River that feels far enough from Virginia to serve as my new home.  This small chapbook was my first purchase upon reaching town, and I sit now in my new rooming house, writing to you by the glow of an oil lantern.  I address these letters to you, but I have no intention of posting them.  You will hear from me when I have something exceptional to relay._

_I arrived here by a long and circuitous route.  Upon fleeing the plantation, I was certain that they would track me and force me to return (another reason I do not contact you directly).   You know what miseries would have ensued.  That was never going to be a life I willingly led.  And so I purposefully set out heading east towards Richmond, where I hunkered down for several weeks before I felt it was safe to take the train towards the Tennessee River, and from thence up the Ohio to the mighty river herself._

_Do you remember the rapidity with which we each devoured James Cooper’s The Prairie, squabbling over whose turn it was to read the next chapter aloud?  As the paddle wheeler laboured against the thick current of the Mississippi, it was as though some wrinkle in time had deposited me into that world, and my fellow passengers seemed torn from its pages.  To be living my very own adventure, free from the past that shackled me!_

_How can I help you understand the excitement that I feel?  As brothers, we could hardly be more different.  I, voluble and gregarious.  You, reserved and idealistic.  From the beginning, I wanted nothing more than to leave Virginia and my heritage behind and forge my own destiny, and you wanted nothing more than to find acceptance as the person you already knew yourself to be.  I have made my wish come true, and I desire the same for you.  All in good time, little brother._

_Independence has only a few civil institutions, including a fledgling newspaper.  I shall make myself useful by offering my services as a newsman and general busybody – a career I was born to take up, I can hear you say!_

_I shall miss you, if I write any more._

_Affectionately,_

_Samuel_

*******


	2. Chapter 2

Independence, Missouri, April 17, 1845

The next day, the two sisters made inquiries at their hotel about the best place to buy a wagon and stock to pull it, preferably cheaply.   The innkeeper directed them to a cartwright by the name of Byers in the down-at-heel lower town.  He assured them that while his business was not as prosperous as others specializing in the booming market outfitting pioneers, Mr. Byers was a honest man who would give them fair advice.  Arriving at his workshop, which was really little more than a three-sided plank building filled to bursting with spare and broken wagon parts and a forge along the back wall, the two young women in their clean dresses and bonnets created quite a stir.   A slight man in a tidy vest and sporting a close-cropped russet beard hastened to greet them.

“Good morning, good morning.  My name is John Byers, the proprietor of this humble shop.  How may I be of assistance?”

By unspoken agreement, Dana picked up the conversation, while Melissa looked around the shop in wonder.  There were a handful of men and boys pretending to perform a variety of tasks, when in truth they were listening attentively to Dana as she spoke, curious about the anomaly of two young women making inquiries to buy a wagon without the intermediary of a male relative.

“Good morning, Mr. Byers.  My name is Dana Scully, and this is my sister Melissa.  We are planning to head overland to meet our uncle in Fort Vancouver, and are looking for a wagon suitable to our needs and means.  We are also looking for stock to pull the wagon, if you know where they could be procured for a bargain.  Unfortunately, we are financially constrained.”

“How many will be in your party?” Mr. Byers asked politely.

“Just the two of us.”  And with that, a sudden silence filled the previously bustling shop.  Mr. Byers’ eyes boggled.

“We are also seeking a guide to accompany us.” Melissa interjected, sensing that their enterprise was about to meet with chivalrous resistance.

“I see,” Mr. Byers replied, although it was very clear from his tone that he did not.  “Well, as it will be just the two of you, you won’t need the largest size of Conestoga wagon.  A fifteen foot wagon would carry four tons of goods, and would therefore only require two yoke of oxen to pull it.  Now, a brand new wagon that size would cost you three hundred dollars, but I have several used ones that I could part with for one hundred and fifty dollars.  And while I don’t sell them, a team of oxen can be bought for forty dollars.  Anything less than that, and you can be certain the oxen are old and likely to collapse on the first long hill.”

As Mr. Byers continued to speak about the various necessities and other expenses required to be outfitted properly for the crossing, Melissa stepped beside her sister and grasped her hand in her own clammy one.

When he finally wound down, Dana interjected, “Thank you very much, Mr. Byers.  You’ve been extraordinarily helpful.  My sister and I are going to take some time to consider the advice that you’ve kindly provided.  I wish you a very good day.”

The two sisters walked briskly into the dirty street and began to make their way uphill towards their hotel.

“Dana …”

“Shhh, Melissa.  Wait until we’re back to our room.”

“Miss Scully!” a strange voice called out from behind them, and then one of the workers from the cartwright shop ran up, stopping directly in front of Dana.

“Yes, sir?”

“I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation with my employer, Mr. Byers.  And while the advice he gave you was technically correct, I believe there is a better solution.” He spoke quickly but earnestly.  Dana detected a faint southern drawl in his otherwise flat speech.  He also had a vague air of familiarity.

“I’m sorry, mister …?”

“Mulder.  Fox Mulder.”  He wiped a filthy hand against his dungarees and extended it towards Dana, who shook it gamely.

“Thank you for your concern, Mr. Mulder, but the amounts mentioned by Mr. Byers are unfortunately far beyond our means.  You may tell your employer that you tried your best, but you were unable to convince us to buy one of his wagons.”

“I don’t think you should buy one of his wagons,” he said bluntly.

Dana examined this odd interlocutor, trying to take his measure.  He was tall and slim, clean-shaven, with thick brown hair that brushed his ears and neck, and flopped boyishly over his high brow.  His skin was lightly tanned, even in April, and while he probably wasn’t much older than her twenty years, he had fine lines radiating from the corners of his eyes, as though he had spent a great deal of time in the sun.  His hands, in addition to being dirty, bore the pronounced muscles and scars of a working man, but his speech was refined, almost eloquent.  In short, he was a puzzle, and Dana liked nothing more than answering riddles.

“Very well, Mr. Mulder.  You have two minutes to convince us.”  She had no idea why she was giving this oddity the time of day, except that he was distracting her from the realization that she and Melissa did not have enough money to make the trek the Fort Vancouver, and wouldn’t have enough time to earn more before it became too late to depart this year.

“Hear me out before you pass judgement, Miss Scully.  As Mr. Byers rightly surmised, two women travelling alone don’t need a full-sized wagon.  But if I’m correct and you are not homesteaders, then you don’t need a medium-sized wagon, either.  If your sole purpose is to arrive in Fort Vancouver and remain at the fort under the care of your relative, then a much smaller emigrant wagon will suffice.   A used one would cost less than fifty dollars.   And while oxen are cheaper than horses, a team of four would cost at least eighty dollars, whereas two horses are all that is needed to pull a lighter wagon, and they have the benefit of serving as mounts, should the wagon need to be abandoned along the way.  All in all, I think you could be sufficiently outfitted for the crossing for one hundred dollars.”  Here Mr. Mulder paused for breath, clearly taking her at her word that he had only two minutes to plead his case.

“But Mr. Mulder, two strong horses would cost far more than fifty dollars, and we’d still need to purchase our provisions!”

Their would-be benefactor smirked, causing his sleepy eyes to dance. “I happen to know some people who will sell you two horses for far less than fifty dollars, Miss Scully.”

“Who, horse thieves?  No, thank you, Mr. Mulder.   Thank you for your time, but we are not interested.  Good day.”  She grabbed Melissa, who had remained unusually quiet throughout the whole, strange exchange, and pivoted down the street.

“Not horse thieves!” Mr. Mulder insisted from over their shoulders.  “Comanches.”

Dana stopped again, disbelief on her pale face.  “Comanches,” she said flatly.

“Yes, ma’am.  At this time of year, there will be a group of them camped across the Missouri, waiting to act as guides for men taking the Santa Fe Trail southward towards Mexico.   They are excellent horsemen, and always travel with spare mounts, to speed their progress.  A Comanche mustang is a beautiful animal, Miss Scully.  Too beautiful to be pulling a wagon, to be honest.  But they are bred for the plains and are tireless and hardy.”

“How did you come to know so much about the Comanche, Mr. Mulder?”  Rather than clarify his character, their conversation had only added layers to the complexity the man presented, and she was equal parts captivated and frustrated.

“I travelled the Santa Fe Trail myself last summer, Miss Scully, and met many Comanche along the way.  In fact, my saddle horse is a Comanche mustang.  I named him Kobi, which is simply “mustang” in Comanche.  My Comanche friends tell me it’s a very stupid name for a horse, but he seems to like it.”  He was babbling now, and they both knew it. 

Despite his cocksure demeanour, he appeared oddly sincere and perhaps a bit desperate to have his proffered assistance accepted, and Dana could not for the life of her decipher why that would be.

“I must admit that I’m intrigued by your ingenuity, Mr. Mulder.  But how would you propose that we transact with these Indians, who are not even in town and whose language we do not speak.”

“That is the beauty of my plan.  I would act as your intermediary.”

“In exchange for what?   You must know that we cannot afford to pay you.”

“In exchange for being chosen to be your guide, Miss Scully.”

*******

** The Independence Examiner, Pieces of Our History **

**When Americans looked for better prospects, for adventure, for breathing room, they looked west towards the setting sun.  From the first, that was the direction of opportunity, and the advancing tide of population spread ever westward, like ink spilled on dry parchment.  But what was west to some, was north, south or east to others.  To the roughly three million native inhabitants living beyond the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers at the time our nation was founded, it was simply ‘here’.  It was not a blank map onto which the ranks of new Americans marched.**

**The first people to settle in the expanse of the American West were, of course, Native Americans.  Today, we believe that they arrived over the Bering Land Bridge during the end of the last Ice Age, but to the pre-contact tribes, the land had been their home since the dawn of time.  Their origin stories spoke of the great grass sea, the life-giving rivers, the dust of the desert, the mountain peaks, and the enormous blue stone arch overhead.  Confounding the European craze for classification, these original peoples were as diverse as the landscape surrounding them.   They spoke distinct languages, practiced different faiths.  Some were nomads, others agriculturalists, and the majority hunter-gatherers.   They lived in tipis, wigwams, long houses, adobe structures and stone cities.  In short, they were as different from one another as they were from the white Europeans, who tried to classify them under the heading ‘red men’, or simply as savages.**

**Conversely, most Native American peoples saw the world through the division of the tribal “us” and the numberless and mystifying “them”.   Long before Columbus, they traded and inter-married, fought and conquered for generations, building up complex societies which the arriving new Americans tried to interpret as uniformity, while the new European arrivals, in turn, were seen by the Native Americans as just another “them”.**

******


	3. Chapter 3

Independence, Missouri, April 18, 1845

Fox Mulder did not believe in a Biblical God.  Or a Hindu or Mohammedan God, either, for that matter.  His young life had been too capriciously cruel to ascribe motivation to a higher benevolent power.  But he did believe in fate.  So when the pretty lady from the post office turned up at his place of employment, wearing a plain calico dress and a dauntless expression, and then proceeded to mention having need of a guide on the westbound trail he likewise planned to take, he did not hesitate nor doubt his instincts.  When the universe aligned the planets in syzygy, one did not pause to question why.  In due time, the reason their paths had crossed would make itself known, he was certain.

Which is how he found himself, in the morning sunshine the day after his first conversation with Dana Scully, tying Kobi in front of the Saint George Hotel.  He was wearing his best riding clothes, in the hope that they would somehow lend some credibility to his enterprise.  Entering the lobby, he saw her right away, seated facing towards the door on a large green silk settee.  She looked composed, but expectant, as he approached.

“Good morning, Miss Scully.”  He removed his hat and bent slightly at the waist, thinking some courtly manners might ease her mind.  He was about to take half of her wealth and ride across the Missouri River to meet with a warlike native tribe.   He could understand her having some misgivings.

She rose resolutely and drew herself up to her full height, which meant the top of her head barely cleared his shoulder, even in her heeled boots.  “Good morning, Mr. Mulder.  You’re very punctual.”

“The ferry service is unpredictable this early in the season, so I deemed it best to give myself plenty of time.”

“In that case, let us go.”  She smoothed down the skirt of her plain dress before proceeding towards the entryway.

“I’m sorry, where are we going?”

“To visit your Comanche friends, of course.”  He stopped in the middle of the Oriental carpet that adorned the lobby floor, and looked down into her upturned, slightly defiant countenance.  He had not noticed the stubborn turn of her nose until now, her many other fine features having proven distracting.  Hers was a face with a view.

“Miss Scully … there is … that is, I had no intention of taking you with me to the Comanche camp.  It’s hardly the place one takes a lady.”

“Mr. Mulder, in about a week or so, if everything goes well, I will be a full-time citizen of the territories beyond the Missouri River.  I expect I will meet, or at least see, Comanche and Cheyenne and Pawnee, as well as many Americans who will make the former look civilized.   Now is not the time to worry about my feminine delicacy.”

“And furthermore,” he continued as though she hadn’t spoken, “how would you accompany me?  I haven’t a carriage, and Kobi is my only saddle horse.”

“This is the Kobi you obtained from the Comanche last summer?  The hardy and spirited mustang bred for the plains?   Surely the extra weight of one small woman would not hinder him?”

“Miss Scully …”  he was at a loss how to deal with this headstrong behaviour.  If she were a man, he would simply tell her to go to hell and be done with it.  He was used to operating alone, without the fetters that friendship or comity required.  Their association was not getting off on the right foot.

“Mr. Mulder, let me put this to you plainly, so that there are no further misunderstandings.   I mean to purchase two horses today.   And as I will be spending roughly half of all that my sister and I own in the world for those two horses, and as our very lives will depend on the reliability of those two horses, and as, up until yesterday, I did not know you from Adam, I intend to ride with you to the Comanche camp.   Now, shall we go?”

Completely nonplussed, Fox Mulder did the only sensible thing one could do when faced with a force of nature.  He helped her onto the back of his horse.

*******

_October 1, 1835_

_Dear little brother,_

_I am enthralled by the community into which I have stumbled.  I chose Independence because it was the furthest I could afford to go up the Missouri by paddle steamer, but by some divine providence (the concept of which I know you disdain), I have happened upon a group of pioneers and exiles, free-thinkers and mountebanks whose company I find endlessly entertaining and ample fodder to fuel my writing._

_I wonder at what our forefathers who braved the crossing of the Atlantic would make of this American town, a thousand miles from the coast?   Who would have guessed that a scant two centuries after the foundation of Jamestown and Plymouth things would have progressed to this degree?   But the history of the United States is, above all else, a story of the triumph of the improbable.  Try to never forget this fact._

_Like Daniel Boone after them, those early colonists generally believed that “a population of ten to the square mile was inconveniently crowded”, and the newborn United States of America promised an expansive allotment of open sky for every hardy European soul who braved the ocean voyage. What Thomas Jefferson referred to as the “empire of liberty”.  And what did their freedom cost them?  For something so precious must surely bear a price.  Isolation.  Hardships by the multitude.  Heavy labour in exchange for even the slightest loosening of nature’s fierce hold on the land.  Even the most basic hallmarks of civilization must have felt a lifetime away._

_And yet still they poured forth from their ships, fleeing religious and political oppression in their homelands.  By the dawn of nationhood, over three million pairs of feet had stumbled gratefully ashore.  Of course, over half of this number were brought here against their will.  No limitless ceiling of opportunity for those miserable slaves on whose backs so many made their fortunes, including our erstwhile guardian.  I do not need to explain this to you.  We grew up in the shadow of their misery._

_Fifty years later, the thirteen original states that had once held all the kinetic potential of our country have exploded westward, flowing over the Appalachian Mountains like sea fog and settling into the broad rivers valleys beyond.   Seventeen million now live in a territory larger than all of western Europe, and yet still we surge westward, always on the lookout for some larger patch of sky._

_For the time being, I will stake my claim to unfettered living here, in Independence.   It is a fitting name._

_Always, your brother,_

_Samuel_

********

** The Independence Examiner, Pieces of Our History **

**After an initial period of rough equality of suffering, colonial American society remodelled itself on familiar European class structures.  Major business and landowners formed a non-aristocratic upper class that quickly became hereditary.   Upstart business owners and skilled tradesmen assembled into a tenuous middle class.   And all others, from rural subsistence farmers to unskilled workers to prostitutes to plantation slaves, formed the vast lower class from whose labour America drew its wealth.**

**The barriers between these classes were porous, but generally only in a downwards direction.  Without titles, the upper class could fall from grace in a generation.  Without employment, the middle class would do the same.  And yet no amount of toil or cleverness could succeed in lifting a slave or a charwoman above their station.  The only exception to this rule proved to be the frontier, as it rolled westward across the continent, where for a generation or two, industry and pluck and good fortune could conspire to lift a lowly settler above their birthright.  This even held true for former slaves and women, provided they could escape whatever bondage imprisoned them back home.**


	4. Chapter 4

Westport Landing, Kansas Territory, April 18, 1845

The spring melt had the Missouri River tearing angrily at her banks.   Dana accepted Mr. Mulder’s hands around her waist as she slid delicately from Kobi’s back.  The bay stallion had in fact proven equal to the task of carrying two adults, but they dismounted to wait for the ferry crossing.   She watched the scene with open curiosity.  Crowded around the landing were all manner of individuals and conveyances.   From what she could see, she and Mr. Mulder were noteworthy only insomuch as they were clean and well-dressed.  There were open wagons pulled by oxen, mothers holding grubby children astride mules, and groups of Appalachian woodsmen wilder than anything she had ever witnessed.  She sidled slightly closer to Mr. Mulder as one such grizzled individual gave her an appreciative head-to-toe perusal, followed by a grunt.  Without saying anything, Mr. Mulder placed his hand protectively along the small of her back and gave the man a cool, possessive stare.   They had not known each other for forty-eight hours, but she was happy for any conclusions these men would draw from their outwardly close rapport. 

The ferry was returning from the far shore.  It was little more than a flat wooden raft, affixed to an elevated rope that spanned the river by shorter ropes and a series of pullies.  The ferryman was a colossus, with forearms like tree trunks that he used to steer the craft with an extended barge pole.  He put her to mind of illustrations she had seen of Rabelaisian giants.  No sooner had the image crossed her mind, than Mr. Mulder leaned down near her ear and whispered, “Gargantua”.  She looked at him in shock, wondering how he could possibly have guessed her thoughts, but before she could ask him, a commotion broke out nearby.

A small group of Negroes were also waiting their turn for the ferry.  They wore ragged clothing and carried no possessions.  Dana could make out wounds around the bare ankles of one, where prolonged wearing of manacles had left their permanent mark.  A group of the roughest woodsmen were crowding the black men, cussing and telling them to get back to their plantation.  These others looked nervous, trying to manoeuver away from their assailants without losing their place in line or drawing undue attention.

“Dago!” Mulder cried out to them suddenly.  Dana looked at him in confusion.  Did he recognize someone?

One of the black men looked over at Mulder, equally confused.

“Dago, come stand with my wife and I.  We will make the crossing together.  Bring along your friends.”

The man whose name was apparently Dago looked at his companions, shrugged in bewilderment, and they made their way carefully towards Mulder and Dana.

Mulder extended his hand to shake and slapped the man heartily on the shoulder, as though greeting an old friend.  At the same time, he muttered under his breath, “Just stand here with us.  They will not bother you.”

And surely enough, the ruffians spat and scoffed, but they did not pursue their sport of harassing the men now that they had a benefactor.  The ferry lurched into the muddy shoreline and disgorged its eastbound freight.  Mulder steadied Dana as she stepped onto the craft, leading Kobi by the other hand.  The Negroes boarded gratefully behind them and huddled by the far railing.  The ferryman accepted a dime from Mulder, then pushed off in silence, and the boat floated downstream until the slack in the ropes caught, the pullies groaned, and the current pulled them away from the United States of America.

On the far bank, Dana alit on solid ground first, followed by Mulder, then the Negroes.  The man called Dago approached and shook Mulder’s hand.

“Thank you, sir.  We are greatly indebted.”

“It was nothing.  I wish you a safe journey.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, how did you know my name was Dago?”

“Lucky guess,” Mulder smirked.  The man guffawed, then joined his companions as they struck out in a southerly direction.

Dana was observing Mr. Mulder with an incredulous expression, so he explained, “Missouri is a slave state, but the territories are still free.  Any escaped slave who manages to get across the river is nominally a free man, unless his former master cares to chase him down and capture him.”

“So you’re a journeyman cartwright, a frontiersman, a part-time horse dealer, _and_ an abolitionist.  Anything else you care to tell me about yourself, Mr. Mulder?”

“I once ate an entire sweet potato pie in one sitting.”  He bobbed his head with earnest enthusiasm, and she shook her head in wonder.  Whatever had she gotten herself into?

********

** The Independence Examiner, Pieces of Our History **

**Perfectly demonstrating the fluidity of Native American identities that confounded American settlers, the Comanche aren’t the Comanche at all.  They refer to themselves as the Numinu, which simply means ‘the people’.  Us.  Comanche was the term given them by their neighbours, the Utes.  It means “those who are always against us”.  Them. Prior to 1700, the Comanche were part of the Shoshoni tribe who made their home in the mountains of what is now western Wyoming.   Upon being introduced to horses by the Pueblo Indians to the south, who in turn had discovered the horse through their contact and eventual colonization by Spanish Conquistadors, the Comanche fractured off and quickly developed a warrior and mounted hunting society that drifted south and eastward to their present home in the far southern plains.  They were fearless soldiers, skilled raiders, hunters of buffalo and savvy traders, including the trade of captive Indians from other tribes to the Spanish.**

*******

The Comanche camp was a short ride away from the ferry landing.  It was a small cluster of buffalo hide tipis around a large common fire.  Beyond the circle of the tipis, a herd of about forty horses grazed.  Dismounting and walking to the edge of the ring of dwellings, Mulder stopped and indicated that Dana should do so as well.  A fierce-looking Indian in buckskin shirt, leggings and breechcloth approached. Kobi lifted his head and nickered.

“We’re in luck,” Mulder spoke in an aside.  “I know him.”

“Fox in Winter, it is good to see you. Maruawe.”  The man stopped several paces away, as though afraid to make physical contact, despite his imposing appearance.

“Maruawe, Quanah.  It is good to see you as well.  I hope that the winter was kind to you and your family.”

“It is always warm at my hearth when I am surrounded by loved ones,” the man answered formally.  He then glanced pointedly at Dana.

“Quanah, may I introduce Miss Dana Scully.  She and her sister plan to make the crossing of the great grass sea to visit their uncle in the land of the Yakima and Nez Perce.  They are in need of two good horses to pull their wagon and act as mounts.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Scully.  You and your sister are lucky to have a good man like Fox in Winter to advise you on these matters.   He traded shrewdly for one of my best horses.  Tell me, Fox, do you still call him Kobi?”

Mulder rolled his eyes and nodded.

“It is a stupid name for a horse,” Quanah remarked bluntly.  “Let me make some inquiries.  I will return.”  With that, Quanah moved away towards the other Comanche braves.

“Fox in Winter?” she asked with a sly smile.

“When I first met Quanah, I was suffering from a stomach complaint.  Upon learning my given name, he said I looked paler than a fox in winter.  The name stuck.  He thinks he’s very clever.”

Dana chuckled, which earned her a baleful look.

“Where did you meet him?”

“Last summer, in the Comanche heartland near Santa Fe.  He is a trader, acting as an intermediary between his people and the Americans and Mexicans who use the Camino Real and Santa Fe Trail.  I was looking for someone, and thought he might be able to assist me.”

“Who were you looking for?”

“My brother,” he answered curtly.  She sensed this was a sensitive topic, so she did not pursue the line of inquiry.  They stood in awkward silence for several long minutes before Quanah returned with a younger man, several inches shorter than Quanah, his broad, bare chest decorated with a fine shell necklace.

“Miss Scully, may I introduce my nephew, Penateka.  He has two horses who I believe will suit your purpose.  They are sturdy and calm enough to pull a wagon, yet too small to serve as mounts for full-sized men.  Just the right size, however, for two courageous women.  Penateka does not speak English, but we have discussed his terms, and he will sell you these horses for twenty of your American dollars.”

Dana looked at Mulder, hoping for advice.  He met her eyes and nodded once.

“Thank you very much, Quanah.  Please tell Penateka that I accept his offer.”  She reached into her money purse, deep in the pocket of her dress, and counted out twenty silver dollars, handing them directly into Penateka’s hand.

“Quanah, could you teach me how to say “thank you” in your language?”  Mr. Mulder’s head swung in her direction, but she ignored him.

“In the language of the Numinu, thank you is “ura”.”

“Ura, Penateka.” 

Before they left the camp leading their newly acquired horses, Mr. Mulder and Quanah conferred quietly together.  She saw Quanah shaking his head sadly while placing a comforting hand on Mr. Mulder’s shoulder.  Obviously, there was no good news from the southwest about his brother.

Riding away, Mr. Mulder was silent, living inside his head with his thoughts.

Waiting for the ferry to return to the western bank of the Missouri, he spurred himself to polite conversation, although this seemed an unfamiliar effort.

“What will you call your horses, Miss Scully?”

“I do not know.  I have never had cause to name an animal before.  It seems to me that they might miss Penateka and their Comanche brethren.  And Kobi isn’t such a stupid name for a horse, I suppose.  Could you help me name them with Comanche words?

His mood brightened for the first time since leaving the camp, and he accepted.

“Tell me more about the Comanche, Mr. Mulder.   You seem well acquainted with their culture.”

“What would you like to know?”

“Anything.  Tell me a story about their world.”

He gave her an appraising look, and she supposed he was trying to measure her sincerity.  He must have deemed it sufficient, because as the ferry slowly drew them back across the Missouri, he recounted:

“For the Comanche, or the Numinu, as they call themselves, the world began in a swirl of dust.  From that dust, the Great Spirit formed their people, and this made them strong like a desert storm.   At the same time as they were created, a ferocious demon also came to life, and tormented them.   In protection, the Great Spirit cast the demon into a huge pit, where its poison seeped into the fangs and stingers of many creatures like the copperhead and the scorpion.”

Mr. Mulder paused to assess the impact of his story on his companion.  As she hadn’t called him a heathen, or thrown herself overboard, he decided to continue.   It was rare indeed to find a willing audience for the wealth of stories he carried about in his mind.

“The Kiowa, friends of the Comanche, tell the story of seven sisters who played one day in a forest with their brother.  The boy pretended he was a bear, and he chased his sisters and they ran away in mock fear.  But something strange occurred, and the boy transformed into the bear he was pretending to be, and pursued his terrified sisters.   They ran and ran, and finally came upon a tree stump, who said to them “climb upon me, and I will save you”.   Climbing onto the stump, it grew and grew, until the seven sisters were raised into the sky, where they became the seven stars of the Pleiades.  Left below and denied his prey, the bear scored the tree with his claws.  The tree stump transformed into rock, and it stands to this day.  I have seen it with my own eyes, standing taller than the tallest tree, and surrounded by wide open prairie.”

They were now walking back along the road that led from the ferry to Independence, and she sat behind Mr. Mulder on Kobi’s back, with one arm wrapped firmly about his lean waist.

“A boy who becomes a bear?   A talking tree trunk?  What do those stories mean?   Are they meant to be allegories, to represent some spiritual belief?”

“They are not _meant_ to be anything, Miss Scully.  They are as real to the Comanche and the Kiowa as the history of ancient Rome or Greece are real to you and I.   They are the tales by which these people understand their place in their world.”

She was silent for the remainder of their journey, as he had given her a great deal to consider.


	5. Chapter 5

******

_January 23, 1836_

_Dear little brother,_

_The winter is a dull, lonely time along the forward edges of our country.  Many shops close, and people flee indoors to eat and drink and sleep the cold months away, awaiting the arrival of spring.  Though I’ve never been a great drinker, I have taken to passing my days in the saloon, because it is here where the greatest variety of company can be found.  The fact that some of the company is female and flirtatious and available for purchase by the hour is a circumstance of which I hope you still remain innocent._

_The other day, I entered into a long discourse with a trapper who was waiting out the snowbound months before returning to the high mountains far to the west.  He was full of stories, many too fantastic to be true, of all that he had seen in his years living in those mountains.  Grizzly bears taller at the shoulder than a full-grown man, waterfalls cascading over sheer cliffs of granite hundreds of feet tall, sulphurous springs that explode like the boiler of a locomotive, blood-sucking goat monsters and enormous rabbits with the horns of an antelope.  This man spent almost all of his days alone, setting trap lines in the foothills of the great mountains, so he was enthusiastic for a rapt audience to whom he could tell his most fanciful tales.  He suggested that I, as a writer, should make my own trip westward and amass a diary of these frontier myths and legends, so that I could report them back to those less fortunate souls in the East who would never have a chance to visit the West and see its majesty firsthand.  I must admit, it is an adventure that appeals greatly to me._

_Sincerely,_

_Samuel_

*****

Saint George Hotel, Independence, April 18, 1845

“So, tell me all about your first great pioneer adventure!” 

Melissa was sitting at a small dressing table in their cozy room, brushing her dark auburn hair out before setting it in rags for the night.

Dana considered what to relate to her sister of her day.  The incident with the escaped slaves at the ferry landing?  The enormous, mute ferryman or the loud, offensive brutes who eyed her like a side of beef?  What about the experience of meeting her first ‘savage’ in the form of Quanah, and finding him more relatable than many of her own people?  And of course there were the strong arms of Fox Mulder, lifting her from Kobi’s back as though she was a young girl.   No, she knew her sister, and that was not a memory she would share, for fear of never hearing the end of it.

“It was a successful venture, I think.  Mr. Mulder believes the two Comanche horses will be more than adequate for our needs.  He is stabling them with his own horse until we are ready to leave.  And because they only cost twenty dollars, we have sufficient funds to purchase all the provisions we require, with perhaps even a little left over for emergencies.  Between Mr. Byers and Mr. Mulder, I have a good idea of what we require: three hundred pounds of sifted flour, two hundred pounds of cured meats, one hundred pounds of lard, forty pounds of sugar and another forty of coffee, seasonings and vinegar.  Mr. Mulder recommended dried pulses and fruits, which seems sensible, especially early on, when the wild plants on our route will not have ripened yet.  And since we do not have a dairy cow, we can trade these simple luxuries for milk and butter along the way.  I have given Mr. Mulder fifty dollars to purchase and repair a used emigrant wagon.  Mr. Byers will allow him to use his shop to make improvements to it, outside of his usual working hours.”

“It seems Mr. Mulder has our planning well in hand,” Missy said cheekily.  “I truly do not understand what is in all this for him.”

“What do you mean?” Dana responded cautiously.

“He has made this journey before, as far as Fort Bridger, he says.  And he appears to be a hale and self-sufficient individual.  We are not paying him anything in return for being our guide.  What does he gain, by taking on the additional responsibility of two women who know nothing of the wilderness?”

“I suppose there is the safety of travelling with the wagon train, rather than alone.  And he may store his heavier items in our wagon, and we will cook for him.”

“Some might wonder whether eating your cooking is a benefit or a punishment,” her sister teased.

Dana didn’t rise to the bait.  Her lack of domestic ability was a longstanding joke between them, and she knew her sister meant the censure lovingly.

“I think… he seems like a man who is hungry for companionship, yet has lost the facility of asking for it, or of even recognizing that hunger,” she resolved thoughtfully.

 “Yes.  I believe you are right.”

“He will only accompany us as far as the Continental Divide, in any event, for he is bound for California.  But that is two thirds of the way to Fort Vancouver, and I imagine we will be expert frontierswomen by the time our paths diverge.”

“Why in the world does he want to go to California?  That’s a fool’s journey!” Missy exclaimed.

“I believe he is looking for something that he has lost.”

Missy looked at her strangely, but she did not elaborate.

*****

Fox Mulder sat in the drafty outbuilding that had served as his living quarters every winter for the past five years.  His pay as a journeyman cartwright was one dollar per day, and his arrangement with John Byers was to work ten hours per day, six days a week from October to May.   This should have provided for a relatively comfortable lifestyle, especially since he had no family to support, but he scrimped and saved his pennies in order to afford his summertime journeys in search of Samuel.  Since arriving in Independence in late 1840, he had searched high and low across Missouri and her neighbouring states, listening for word of his brother.  In 1842, he travelled west into the Rocky Mountains, looking for his brother amongst the mountain men there. The next year he went south to the newly born independent Republic of Texas, where stories of the courageous and ultimately futile defense of the mission of the Alamo had inspired many young adventurous men to flock to the army of President Sam Houston.   And finally last summer, he had followed the Santa Fe Trail into the deserts and canyons to the southwest where trade flourished between the distant colony of New Mexico and the Mexican heartland far to the south, connected by the Camino Real.  In each place, he inquired about a young man named Samuel Mulder; tall, with mutable green-grey eyes and a fondness for long words and elaborate stories.  So far, all that he had found were sympathetic glances and an appreciation for the otherworldly natural splendour of the landscape and the varied peoples who called it home.

He reached under his horsehair mattress on the narrow bench that served as his bed and removed a small bundle of loosely wrapped oilskin, only slightly larger than his palm.  Opening it delicately, he lifted out his brother’s precious diary and considered how it had come into his possession. 

In the spring of 1840, a small parcel had been delivered to him in Alexandria, Virginia, where at the age of eighteen, he was just completing his apprenticeship with a local cartwright.  Upon opening the odd package, it turned out to be a yellowed newspaper called The Examiner, printed in the frontier town of Independence, Missouri.  The paper was dated the previous fall, and he puzzled over its meaning until he caught sight of an article entitled “Is Nauvoo Illinois the Site of the Next Zion?”  Its author was one Samuel Mulder.  Once he got over his shock, he set about making plans to locate and travel to the unknown town where his missing brother was apparently writing for the local paper about an upstart religious sect known as the Mormons.

Assembling the resources to leave Virginia had proven harder than he could have imagined, but finally in September he packed up his meagre possessions, including the set of tools and small stamp that qualified him to work as a journeyman cartwright wherever he went in the United States.  It was a long and unpleasant two-month trip by foot, stage and riverboat to reach Independence.  Upon arriving, his first stop, before even renting a room or taking a bath, was the storefront where The Examiner was printed.  He still remembered the sense of breathless anticipation that atrophied his muscles and his wits as he stood in the small office redolent of printer’s ink and asked after Samuel Mulder.   A middle-aged man in a dusty clerk’s waistcoat and mutton chops peered at him with suspicion.

“Samuel Mulder?  I reckon you mean Sam.”  Mulder nodded eagerly, barely able to form words.

“Yes, sir.  I know that he wrote for this paper at least as recently as last October.”  Mulder pulled out the carefully folded page of the newspaper, and showed it to the proprietor.

“Welllll, that’s true, as far as it goes.  Sam used to come by pretty regular, pestering me with one outlandish story or another that he wanted me to print.  Fairy tales, I used to tell him.  Missouri may be the youngest state, but I run a reputable newspaper, and I couldn’t very well offend my readership by printing fables and nursery rhymes.  You wouldn’t believe some of the hogwash he wanted to write!  Giants and lake monsters and people who live in the stars but come down to Earth and I don’t know what else.  He even wanted to interview one of them red savages so that people would see that they were actually civilized, if you can believe it.”

Mulder smiled grimly.  Yes, that was his brother. 

“Could you tell me where I might locate him, Mr. Frohike?  I’m his brother, and I haven’t seen him in five years.”

The older man peered at him dubiously, looking more like a furry leprechaun than a newsman, but something he saw must have tipped the scales in Mulder’s favour, because his expression softened.

“Aye, you do resemble him, now that I think of it.   Well, Mr. Mulder, I wish I could tell you where you could find your brother.  I truly do.  But you see, he disappeared last winter.  Not too long after that article you showed me was printed.   Like I said, he used to stop by almost every week, even when he wasn’t pitching a story, but come November or December, he just stopped.  I went to his rooming house, seeing as I owed him two dollars for the article, but they told me he hadn’t been back there either.  Just up and left, leaving his things in his room and everything.  I figured maybe there’d been a family emergency back east, and he’d come back soon.  But I never saw him again.”

“I’m the only family he has,” Mulder mumbled unconsciously.  Gone.  After five years of no news, he’d finally tracked down his brother, only to find out that he’d once again disappeared.  He felt like he was chasing a ghost.

He managed to collect himself and thank Mr. Frohike.  He asked for the name of Samuel’s rooming house and trudged there with weary feet, utterly dejected. 

Asking for a room for the night, the matron in charge of the lodging exclaimed, “Why, you’re the spitting image of your brother, Mr. Mulder!  How is he doing?”

“I wish I knew, ma’am.  I came to Independence to find him, and now I’ve been told he isn’t in town anymore.”

“Oh, you poor soul.  I wish I could help you, but it’s like I told Mr. Frohike from The Examiner, he just up and disappeared without a word.   Left his effects, such as they were, in his room.  He was even paid up to the end of the month.  Say, let me get you his things.  I set them aside, in case he ever came back this way.  I liked your brother, I did.  He was a good man.  Peculiar, but honest to a fault.  He always paid me on time and never caused a ruckus.  I felt a bit sad for him, as he had a heartsore, forsaken air about him.”  Here she looked at Mulder shrewdly, before commenting, “I can see now it runs in the family.”


	6. Chapter 6

** The Independence Examiner, Pieces of Our History **

**It is human nature, even when flouting convention, to follow in the footsteps of those who went before if their efforts were successful.  So it was that the earliest white explorers of the Great Plains – fur trappers and missionaries – quickly established a consistent route that led them from the staging towns of the lower Missouri River into the nearly infinite wilderness ahead.   That route started off following the older, well-established Santa Fe Trail, then branched off to the north and west to follow the Kansas and Little Blue Rivers, before eventually joining the Platte River, which, along with its tributary the North Platte, formed a roughly east-west corridor across the Great Plains to the mountains beyond.   From the North Platte, the trail ascended the Sweetwater River, which plunged to the south until it met an innocuous pass across the Continental Divide.  A sharp northerly turn to avoid the Wasatch Range of eastern Utah, and then the trail adopted pre-existing Native hunting trails along the Bear River, jumped to the torrential Snake River valley, and then over several other mountain ranges before meeting the mighty Columbia, which flowed into the Pacific Ocean beyond Fort Vancouver.  To say that this trail was well-established in the 1840s is an over-statement, but it had been documented in several published manuals and followed by close to five thousand souls in the previous two decades.   Several way-stations had arisen to shelter and re-provision the growing number of travellers along the route; including Fort Laramie, near the present Nebraska-Wyoming border; Fort Bridger, in southwestern Wyoming; and Fort Hall, in southern Idaho.**

**In order to bear the hardships that the frontier was sure to produce, an individual needed strong motivation to make the four to six month journey.  The promise of wealth in the form of precious furs or rare minerals drove many.   The calling to save the souls of the unbaptised inspired others.  Most, however, wanted the chance to earn a decent living for themselves and their families, and saw the odds of that happening as greater in the uncharted territories of the West.**

*****

Independence, Missouri, April 24, 1845

The mustering for the departure of the Oregon-bound wagon train was a chaotic, noisy affair.  It took place on the far side of the Missouri River on the last Thursday in April, not far from the Comanche camp Dana had visited only a few days before.  To avoid the long wait for the ferry, Mr. Mulder recommended that they cross the previous evening, so Dana and Melissa Scully spent their first night sleeping out of doors within sight of the town of Independence.  The night air was still cool, and the wagon bed narrow, so they huddled together, fully dressed, surrounded by woolen blankets.  Mr. Mulder slept near the wagon in his bedroll, seemingly unbothered by the chill or the muddy ground.

The wagon was a ragtag assemblage of parts.  The box and chassis were from the used cart Mr. Mulder had purchased for them.  To it he had affixed four new wheels which he had fabricated in Mr. Byers’ shop, when his own long workday was finished.  He had also restrung the hickory bows and patched the tough canvas that stretched over the box to protect the wagon’s contents from weather.  Best of all, he had purchased four heavy iron springs and mounted them between the wagon deck and the driver’s seat.   Wagons were without any means of suspension, and the stiff iron wheels bounced roughly over rugged terrain, of which there was sure to be plenty on their route.  The two sisters thanked Mr. Mulder effusively for his efforts, and insisted on paying him for his time, but he shook off all praise, and said they could work off their debt to him in biscuits, as their voyage progressed.

The two Comanche mares had been named Tsiya and Awanika, meaning otter and young deer in the language of the Numinu.  They had been fitted to harness, and seemed to be adjusting to their new role as draft stock. 

Besides their bedding, the small wagon also contained a cedar trunk in which the two sisters had stored their clothing and personal effects, a shovel, two lengths of rope, spare leather for the harness, a spare axle for the wagon, a bucket of grease, an axe, a handsaw, various cart-making tools belonging to Mr. Mulder, cast iron cooking implements and tin dishware, a small basin for washing, a bag of medicinal items and a lantern with a limited supply of whale oil to light it.  Their foodstuff was kept in a watertight container known as a chuck box, near the back of the wagon. Mr. Mulder also rode with two small saddlebags, in which he presumably kept his own worldly goods, plus a bedroll which he stored in the wagon when he wasn’t using it.  He had a large Bowie knife strapped to his thigh, and a Whitney percussion rifle housed in a leather sheath attached to his saddle.  With his leather sack coat and wide-brimmed felt hat, he looked every inch the frontiersman, and not at all like the genteel man who had greeted Dana in their hotel less than a week before.  She was glad to have met that version of him first.

It took half a day for the other forty-one wagons that would make up the train, plus the large herd of livestock belonging to the other settlers, to make their way across the muddy, swollen river.  Melissa and Dana amused themselves by observing their new trail companions from the boot of their wagon.  Mulder paced and tinkered with the harnesses, seemingly impatient with the prolonged wait.  Finally, after a great deal of confusion and false starts, a cry of “wagons ‘ho” could be heard from the front of the line, and an excited roar spread across the assembled crowd.  One by one, the wagons rolled forward, making their plodding way westward towards the Kansas River, which would serve as their first corridor into the open prairie beyond.  As a departure, it was rather anti-climactic, and Dana found she had plenty of time to accustom herself to driving their small wagon.  In truth, Tsiya and Awanika were simply following Kobi, who Mr. Mulder rode just to their side.  They took up a place about two-thirds of the way back in the train, and started out on their grand adventure.

*****

_March 2, 1836_

_Dear little brother,_

_I have been in Independence almost six months, and I have finally stopped looking over my shoulder for Mr. Spender’s henchmen, come to drag me back to Virginia.  Could it be that after years spent under his thumb, he would let me escape so easily?  Or did his promise to watch over us really mean nothing to him?  I do not know which answer saddens me more.  I hope that he is treating you well, and that you were not made to suffer for my impetuous actions.  He is a cruel man, but I believe his feelings towards our mother would govern his conduct in your regard, despite his shortcomings._

_Without the threat of capture, I can enjoy the peace of living by my wits for the first time in my life.  I have sold several articles to The Examiner, which, supplemented by the tiny inheritance left to me by our mother, has sustained me.  I hear stories of the unmeasurable riches of the West, however, and feel the tug of adventure pulling at my sleeve again.  Imagine if I were to experience its majesties firsthand, and commit my experiences to paper, likes James Fennimore Cooper!_

_Just yesterday, I visited the township of Westport Landing, on the western shore of the river.  Here, traders meet and muster before heading overland via the Santa Fe Trail towards the Republic of Texas and the territories of Mexico.  The very words I heard spoken there send a chill down my spine: Kiowa, Taos Pueblo, the Cimarron River, Comanche.  Men spoke with great passion about the herds of buffalo wandering the plains, more numerous than clouds of starlings, and I am filled with longing to see them with my own eyes, before we white men bring about their inevitable demise._

_I am trying to convince the publisher of The Examiner to offer me a weekly column in which I can share my impressions of this unique time in our history, when the apex of our prospects is limited only by how far our eyes can see, and what we are willing to focus them on.  Many people pass through this town, and they are hungry for word of where they have come from, and where they are going.  When that happens, I will send you a copy, so that you may be inspired by my success._

_Affectionately,_

_Samuel_


	7. Chapter 7

Kansas Territory, Late April 1845

Their first days on the trail were strangely idyllic.  The weather was surprisingly fine for late April, and they advanced almost twenty miles a day over the dry ground.  This close to the Missouri River, there were signs of settlement in the so-called Unorganized Territory.   When they came to the Kansas River, Dana and Melissa were delighted to hear a familiar French Canadian accent, as the ferrymen were former fur trappers who had married local Kansas tribeswomen and settled near a ford in the river known in the Kansa language as Topeka.

Occasionally, the train would come to a halt where some impediment blocked its progress.  This was usually a creek bank made too steep by the winter floods, or a fallen tree across their path.  Mr. Mulder and men from each wagon grabbed a shovel or axe, as appropriate, and filed to the front of the line to help clear the passage.  Dana came to understand that the benefit of the wagon train wasn’t so much collective protection, as it was collective labour.  The guides and drovers divided the work of minding the large herd of cattle and sheep, the women watched out for each other’s children, and shared the work of feeding two hundred hungry mouths.  Migrating westward was a communal enterprise.

The easy going also allowed time to get to know their trail companions.  They came from an extraordinary cross-section of society.  Some were new immigrants to the United States who sought to distance themselves from the poor prospects and harsh treatment that newcomers found in the East Coast cities.  Others were labourers or subsistence farmers who hoped the infamous natural wealth of the West would permit them to fill their bellies or their purses.  There were large extended families as well as single men, but Dana and Melissa were the only unmarried women over the age of eighteen.  This drew the occasional speculative comment, especially when it became obvious that Mr. Mulder was unmarried as well, but on the whole, she was pleasantly surprised at the lack of moral outrage their situation drew.  Having left their supposedly civilized communities behind, people were free to form their own opinion, based on the simple measure of whether one’s actions caused anyone any harm.

Melissa sat next to her on the driver’s seat that afternoon, the soft spring sunshine warming her pretty face below her cotton bonnet.  She bumped against her sister’s shoulder companionably.

“So, what do you make of our raggle taggle group of pioneers, Dana?  Do we deserve our own epic tale, like Daniel Boone?”

“Unless you count the fact that we haven’t done laundry in nearly a week, I don’t believe any of our exploits have reached legendary status quite yet.  But I’m learning about foraging and campfire cuisine from Mrs. Berenbaum and her sisters, and about botany and natural history from Mr. Mulder.  It is like a rolling schoolhouse, and that pleases me.”

“It suits you,” her sister commented after a moment.  “You were not meant for domestic pursuits…”

“Yes, you’ve made that abundantly clear!” Dana interrupted.

“I don’t mean to tease you, Dana.  I am in earnest, for once.   Settling down with some Galway-born midshipman and raising a small herd of red-headed children… that was never going to answer you.   At least out here, on the frontier, you will not be held to the same strict rules of behaviour, the same narrow set of expectations.”

“I… I suppose you are right.  But it is not as though I am free to do whatever I please.   Society still expects me to behave a certain way, to follow a certain path, or else I will draw scorn and ridicule, not just to myself, but to our family as well.   If I were to, say, put on a pair of breeches and ride astride Tsiya as the men do, I can assure you there would be repercussions.”

“There might also be offers of marriage,” Melissa teased, and Dana dutifully rolled her eyes.

“Have you… considered that?  Marriage, I mean,” Melissa clarified.

“How do you mean?”

“Well, to hear people talk, there are many single men in Oregon Territory, and hardly any marriageable women.  You and I are likely to draw a lot of attention of the matrimonial kind.”

“Oh.   Well, yes.  I suppose that is true.  But I hope our uncle will not pressure us to make a decision of that magnitude without first considering our opinion on the matter.   I know that we will be a financial burden to him, but we have already proven that we can earn our keep, and I expect the opportunities to do so will exist at Fort Vancouver as well.”

“Hmmm…”

“What?  What, Missy?”

“I don’t know.  I just, I don’t see that future for you.  I can’t imagine you running a laundry, but I don’t see you in some log-hewn cabin with a burly trapper for a husband either.  You are destined for greater things, dear sister.”

“And how do you know this, Missy?   Have you consulted a prognosticator, or read it in my stars?”   Melissa’s tendency towards the arcane and the mystical made her sister uneasy.

“No, Dana.  I don’t need a fortune teller to inform me that you are extraordinary.   I only pray that one day your path crosses with a man who recognizes and values it as well.”

****

_April 10, 1836_

_Dear little brother,_

_Word of the heroic but doomed defence of the Alamo Mission is only now trickling northward to Missouri.  I imagine you hear of these things sooner in Virginia, being closer to the nexus of power.   I had not expected that in supporting Mexican independence from Spain, the United States would be trading a distant autocrat for a nearby tyrant, but it would appear that is the case._

_How an anemic, ineffectual government such as that of Santa Anna expected to exert any means of control over a territory separated from Mexico City by over 1,500 miles of desert and banditry is anybody’s guess.  As soon as the trade barriers were lifted after Mexican Independence in 1821, it was only a matter of time before the surge of American emigrants to Texas tipped the scales of influence in our favour.   As a Spanish emissary once wisely observed “where others send invading armies, America sends her colonists”._

_And I might have been sympathetic to the Mexican situation, were it not for the barbaric methods they have adopted to retain control of the territory.   When the men, women and children in the Alamo were surrounded, they were shown no quarter.   When Austin’s army surrendered in Goliad, they were massacred to a man.  It makes my blood boil, and I long to contribute in some meaningful way.   I’ve written a column for The Examiner, of course, but these paper tigers have no bite.   A man of words must needs be a man of action._

_With righteous vengeance in my heart,_

_Samuel_


	8. Chapter 8

Kansas Territory, Early May 1845

It was after crossing the Kansas River that they saw their first large herd of buffalo.  The spring grass had grown quickly in the warming air, and at first Dana thought she was looking at an endless landscape of ant hills rising above the pale green sea.  But these proved to be the high, furry withers of thousands of grazing buffalo.  She reined in their team in shock and sat gazing at the sight.  Mr. Mulder stopped beside the wagon and took in her dumbfounded expression with a slight smile.

“Amazing, isn’t it?  This is nothing, compared to some of the herds I saw in Texas and on the Santa Fe Trail.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Very few white people have.  Welcome to the frontier, Miss Scully.”

“It is so much more than I expected.  I feel transported, as though we have left our planet for another, where every landmark and experience is magnified a hundredfold.”  She looked down at her hands, bashful that she had shared this fanciful notion with their guide, but he observed her with the same slightly curious, insightful look as always.

“May I tell you another story, Miss Scully?   About others who see the grandeur of this land as you do?”

Upon her nod, he began, “The Pawnee, who live along the Platte River that we will be reaching soon, believe that in the far west of the prairie is the Darkening Land, marked by high mountains that circle the world.  To the east of those great mountains lies the Sunlands, smooth and pale green like unripened fruit.  Running through the rippling, endless plains are slow, peaceful rivers, stitched into the land by rows of great trees that line their banks.  Wakoda, the Mysterious One, created the sunshine, the sweet, refreshing water, and the clear sky that rises like a blue stone arch overhead.  The Thunder Gods bring rain, but then allow the Four Winds to blow soft across the land to clear away the clouds, accompanied by spirit visitors from the four paths that they guard.  To the Pawnee, the prairies are a self-contained world, and to enter them is to surrender yourself to their eternal ordinances.”

She let out her breath.  “That is beautiful.”

“I had a feeling you would understand.”

“And why is that, Mr. Mulder?”

“Because, Miss Scully, you respect the journey as well as the destination.  It is a rare gift to see beyond one’s viewpoint, and to open one’s mind to extreme possibilities.   You appear to possess it.”

She blushed at this unexpected praise.  She had not considered whether Mr. Mulder had formed any particular opinion of her.  He was so inwardly focussed, she assumed he barely noticed her existence, but apparently that was not the case.

******

_August 8, 1838_

_Dear little brother,_

_The whole town is abuzz with the news, and I imagine word will reach you, even in Virginia.  A war has broken out between groups of Missouri settlers and the practitioners of the Church of Mormon!_

_Perhaps I should back up, as I know you have no interest in matters of faith.  A man by the name of Joseph Smith has started a new church, based on a message he received from an angel.  I can picture you rolling your eyes, Fox.  But whatever your opinion on the nature of his revelation, Mr. Smith has amassed a great number of converts, some coming from even so far away as Europe.  He has declared that the New Jerusalem will be right here, in Jackson County, and his followers have worked diligently to make this vision come to pass._

_Unfortunately, as you well know, society is not light-handed with those who disrupt the status quo, and Mr. Smith and his followers have had to decamp a number of times, fleeing persecution and false accusations.  I have met Mr. Smith, and I can tell you that his goal is admirable.  He believes in the common holding of property, so that none of his followers will be known as poor, and none as rich.  He abhors slavery, and agitates against its cruelties whenever he can.  And he believes, as I do, that the Native Americans that lived on this land long before we white men arrived are in fact the children of God; a lost tribe of Israel._

_It pains me to see a good man so cruelly misrepresented, and so I plan to visit Mr. Smith in his capital of Far West and interview him, so that the common citizen of the Missouri Territory can read an impartial account of his views and his aims, and realize that they have nothing to fear.  I have come to realize that fighting against the future of such injustices is my one true calling._

_Wish me well,_

_Samuel_

****


	9. Chapter 9

Platte River, Kansas Territory, May 13, 1845

As its name suggested, the Platte River was both flat and boring.  It meandered lethargically through the prairie that extended to the far horizon in all directions.   The initial excitement of the voyage had died down, and the wagon train had settled into a routine.  Women woke early to stoke the fires and make breakfast, while children played amongst the wagons and men prepared the livestock for the day’s drive.  The train began to move within an hour of sunrise, taking advantage of the long summer days to forge onward, as hardships surely lay ahead that would cause delay.

A cacophony of cattle and sheep followed the train, and on days without rain, they created a moving cloud of dust.  The drovers and hired men stayed behind the main train for this reason.  Progress was slow, as forty-two wagons advanced single file along a faint, rutted track that roughly paralleled the winding river.  Those not occupied driving the stock or wagons could easily keep up by wading through the pale green spring grass that flanked the trail.

Melissa walked beside the wagon, carrying on an animated conversation with Elsa Berenbaum, the stout, voluble middle-aged mother from the wagon behind theirs.  Snippets of what they were saying wafted to Dana in the light breeze.  Something about homespun versus factory-made cotton.  Missy made friends everywhere she went.  The sisters were different in many ways, but they loved each other equally.

As the sun reached its zenith, the wagons pulled into the scant shade offered by the willow and dogwood that lined the sandy banks of the river.  The Platte’s water was muddy and unpleasant to drink without letting the sediment settle out, so the waypoints tended to concentrate around the few clear streams that joined the larger waterway.  Mr. Mulder arrived from wherever he had spent the morning, and the trio sat on the moist bank and ate a simple meal of cold biscuits and bacon, plus fresh-brewed coffee.  Children screamed as they gambolled in the shallow water.  After a short doze and a check of the horses’ tack, they recommenced their forward march.

By mid-afternoon, it was obvious that something was amiss.  There were always individuals striking out into the tall grass to seek a bit of privacy in order to relieve themselves, but their numbers kept growing, and often it was the same person leaving the train multiple times.  The pace of the train went from slow to crawling, as more and more families waited for their loved ones to return from the tall grass.   Mulder rode beside their wagon for a change, looking pensive.   Eventually the train ground to a dead stop, and he spurred Kobi and galloped to its head, where a man named Joseph Seawell had been elected captain of the motley group of settlers, despite having never set foot west of Thirty-Two Mile Creek.  In truth, Mulder was far more qualified to lead the train towards Oregon, but he wasn’t interested in being responsible for so many lives.

“What is happening, Joseph?”

“A bout of dysentery, I reckon.  We’ll set down stakes for the evening, give everybody the chance to take care of their kin.”

“It could be cholera.  You need to separate the sick, to make certain they don’t infect the entire group.”

“Well, I would never.  These folks just need tending and plenty of fresh water.  You best head back and look after your womenfolk.”  Here Mr. Seawell leered a little.  There had obviously been talk about the fact that Mulder, a single man, was accompanying not one, but two beautiful unmarried women on the journey.  Notwithstanding the fact that he slept outside on his bedroll every night while Dana and Melissa occupied the wagon, and that they were surrounded by over two hundred curious and meddlesome chaperones.

Mulder sighed and made his way back to the wagon.

Melissa was helping Elsa with her two youngest, both of whom were vomiting profusely and crying.  A prickling feeling came across the back of his neck as he watched the elder Scully sister try to calm the children.

He leaned into the back of the wagon, where Dana was looking for her trove of medicinal supplies.  “Miss Scully, we have to go.”

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Mulder?”

“These people are infected with cholera.  There’s nothing we can do to save them, but we can save ourselves if we are quarantined.  We need to separate from the group.”

She looked at him as though he was mad.  “Mr. Mulder, these people are sick.  They need our assistance, not our abandonment!”

“I understand and admire your healing impulses, Miss Scully, but I’ve seen cholera at work before.  If people are infected, they will be dead by nightfall tomorrow.  It is an awful way to perish.  No-one knows how, but cholera is highly contagious.   If you and your sister are not yet infected, the only way to guarantee your continued health is to isolate yourselves from the ill.”

He spoke so earnestly and she could tell he was fighting a very real urge to flee.  They’d only known each other for a little over two weeks, but he did not strike her as a cowardly man.  He was trying to protect her and her sister the best way he knew how.

“Missy!  Missy, please come over here a minute!” she called out.

****

_October 28, 1838_

_Dear little brother,_

_I am shaking so badly, I can barely hold my pen.  Few things anger me more than injustice, and injustice against the defenseless in particular.  I know that our shared experience of childhood aligns us in this regard._

_I mentioned my sympathy for the Mormon settlers who are trying to make Missouri their place of refuge, after many years of persecution and expulsion in other states.  It would appear their efforts will be equally blocked here, as the Governor, one Lilburn Boggs, has no interest in defending them, and has left their fate to the rule of the mob._

_To better understand my fury, you should know that Governor Boggs bears no slight resemblance to our own Mr. Spender. By which I mean, he is villainy incarnate, with a facility for amoral calumny and a disdain for all those who were not born to power.  Were I to learn that he preys on the weakness of women who look to him for their means of livelihood, I would not be surprised in the least._

_Governor Boggs has a long history of making promises to the Mormons, and then reneging on those promises to their great peril.  In this case, he has allowed a climate of oppression to fester in those counties where the Mormons were previously permitted to settle, to the point that their land and homes are now being seized by citizen militias of those counties, without any recourse whatsoever!  It is October, and unusually cold.  Just the other night, a group of Mormon children froze to death as they tried to tried to flee the angry mob that had seized their family home.  And how does Lilburn Boggs respond to these crimes against humanity?  By issuing a decree that reads, in part, “the Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace”._

_I am rallying support amongst sympathetic townspeople here in Independence, of whom there is no small amount, and I intend to confront Governor Boggs in the only forum that has any meaning to him: the court of public opinion._

_Samuel_


	10. Chapter 10

Platte River, Kansas Territory, May 13, 1845

They made their way slowly about a mile downriver to the sandy banks of a small stream they had forded earlier in the day.  Surprisingly, no-one asked where they were going or why they were leaving the group.   Everyone was occupied taking care of the sick.  They set up camp in silence, untacking the horses and picketing them to pasture near the stream.  Dana and Melissa spoke quietly while preparing the evening meal, although no-one was particularly hungry.  Mulder stood nearby, a dark outline against the weltering sky.

Dana woke to the creaking of the wagon on its axles.  The moon was bright enough to make out dim shadows.  Missy wasn’t on the blanket bed beside her, so she must have answered a call of nature.  Perhaps that is what woke her.  She lay back down and closed her eyes.   Soft whispers outside caused her to sit up again.  She could make out Melissa’s voice and a lower masculine timbre.  A sudden spark of jealousy surprised her.  If her sister and Mulder were forming a friendship, why should she care?  In a certain sense, they were well suited.

She was prepared to ignore the budding romance, and ask her sister about it tomorrow while they were driving, when the unmistakable noise of retching broke the still.   She wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and clambered down from the wagon.

Mulder was squatting by the fire, his hand tentatively resting on Melissa’s shoulders as they shook with effort.   He looked up at her with a mixture of relief and pity.

“Melissa?” her voice broke as her throat squeezed tight and her stomach clenched in sympathy.

Her sister groaned and spat.  There was a small pool of frothy white spume at her feet.

“Is it…?” she couldn’t bear to speak the word, and he couldn’t meet her glance, but he nodded slowly.

“What can we do?   There must be something we can do.”

“Miss Scully…”

“No.  I don’t want to hear it!  I am not leaving my sister alone to suffer!   You said you’d seen this before.  What did the people who … what can we do?”

The pain in his eyes was nearly physical, but he paid her the respect of fully considering her question.

“Fluids.  She will quickly become dehydrated, so she needs plenty of clear water.  And the natives make a tea from the berries and bark of the chokecherry bush that seems to help suppress the worst of the emesis.”

“Are there any chokecherry shrubs nearby?” she was nearly frantic with the idea that there was something they could be doing to save her sister’s life.

“Yes, there should be.  If I try to forage in the dark, will you be alright here with your sister?”

She nodded.  He found his Bowie knife in his bedroll and grabbed the small cast iron pot they used to brew coffee.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.  Keep her lying on her side, so she does not choke.  And stoke the fire – she will be cold.”   With that, he quickly and silently made his way into the night.

*****

The time that followed was a swirling void: the sun rose, but there was no light. Mulder came back, but she was all alone.  Melissa moaned and retched and shook, but there was no sound except the dull thud of her steadfast heart, beating in the vacuum of her breast.  Mulder brewed the tea from chokecherry bark that he managed to locate, heaven knew where.  Together, they gently lifted Missy’s head and tried to pour the tea into her gasping mouth, but most of it spilled back out onto the thirsty sand, or was expelled with the next round of vomit.  Her sister’s eyes became sunken, and the skin on her hands wrinkled.  No matter how high they stoked the fire, she continued to shake with cold.  Most of the time she suffered quietly, but occasionally she tried to sit up and spoke loudly to visions only she could see.

Sometime during the following night, Missy became lucid again.  Her body was weak and clumsy, but she managed to lean against the wheel of the wagon for a while and sip some of the chokecherry tea.  Dana and Mulder ate for the first time in twenty-four hours, then the three fell into a fitful sleep.

The rising sun filtered through the branches of cottonwood overhead, and lit the small sandy oxbow with a verdant glow.  Dana woke and stretched her aching muscles.  Her corset dug into her ribs.  Rolling towards Missy, she saw that her sister was still asleep, ethereal in the warm light.  Her skin had an odd blue cast to it.  She looked for Mulder, but he was not nearby.  Something caught her eye in the glade across the river, a glimmer of red hair and pale, luminous skin.  She gasped, thinking for a moment that Melissa had somehow wandered away in her delirium, but her sister still lay nearby.

She rose to sit beside Melissa, stroking her matted hair softly and listening to her heavy, laboured breaths.  Her sister opened her eyes, but they were dull and glassy, like the marbles they played with as girls.

“Look at us, little sister, on a grand adventure.  Like the stories you used to tell me about knights and dragons.”

“I never imagined there would be quite so many cattle on a grand adventure.  Or insects.” She tried to joke.  Missy smiled weakly.

“Father would be so proud of you.  His little lieutenant.  You will do quite well with our uncle on the wild frontier.   Just stay close to Mr. Mulder.”

“We’re both going to join Uncle McLoughlin, Missy.  You are getting better.”

Missy smiled again, but did not agree.  The effort of talking was draining what little energy she had remaining, and she seemed to be visibly shrinking, like ripe fruit left out in the sun.  She coughed, and a foamy spittle rose to her lips.   Silent moments passed by them, like they were stanchions in the river of time.

Abruptly, Melissa began speaking again, though she stared as though focussing on something far away.

“Just remember … can do anything… so proud of you.  Be patient with him… good man… love…” Then, clearly, as though speaking to someone familiar that only she could see, “The boat will carry me across.  We will meet on the other shore.”

A paroxysm seized her body, which convulsed with tremors.

“Missy!”  But there would be no answer.


	11. Chapter 11

Some time later, Mulder returned to the clearing.   Dana was sitting cross-legged on the ground, her sister’s head cradled in her lap, as she stroked her hair soothingly.

“Is she ….?”

Dry eyes looked at him, and she nodded, lips pressed into a sealed line.

“I am so dreadfully sorry, Miss Scully.”  He seemed like he wanted to say more, but couldn’t.

“Where have you been?”

“I … decided to do a bit of scouting, to see what has become of our group.  I wanted to give you some time alone with your sister.”

“You knew.  You knew she would die.”

His glance turned guilty.  “Once the skin goes blue, it is only a matter of time.  The body’s organs cease to function.”

She absorbed this information without response.  He was concerned for her, but there was pressing information to be shared.

“The wagon train has moved on.  I came to where they were camped two days ago, and they were gone.”

She nodded, but otherwise did not react.  Her hand continued mindlessly stroking her sister’s hair.

“There was no-one to deliver holy unction.  I never considered that, when we struck out.  There is likely no consecrated ground between here and the Pacific coast.”

“You’re Catholic?”

She looked at him askance, but there was no malice in his expression.

“Yes, we were raised Catholic.  My father’s family came from Ireland after the Revolution.  My mother is from Lower Canada.”

“I have been rightly accused of being next to a heathen, but my understanding of last rites is that they are a way to ease the person’s passage into death through prayer, and that in the absence of a priest, they can be administered by anyone.”

She hesitated, unsure what he was implying, or if he was just talking to fill the palpable void.

“What I mean to say is, is there a prayer that you might perform?”

She was quiet for several minutes.  Then, gathering herself visibly, she began:

_The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want._

_He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters._

_He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake._

_Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…_

Here she broke off, unable to force air past the bitter ache in her throat.  But Mulder, recognizing the psalm, continue to recite softly.

_menuchos yenahaleini._

_Nafshi yeshovev yancheini bemagalei tzedek lema'an shemo._

_Gam ki elech be'gei tzalmawves, lo iraw raw ki ataw imadi, shivtechaw u'mishantechaw hemaw yenachamuni._

_Ta'aroch lefawnai shulchawn neged tzoriroi dishantaw vashemen roshi, cosi rivawyaw._

_Ach tov vaw'chesed yirdifuni kol yemei chayoi ve'shavti be'veis Hashem l'orech yawmim._

“You’re Jewish?” she asked in surprise.

“I haven’t been much of anything for a long time, Miss Scully.”

Composing herself, she gently lowered her sister’s head to the ground.  Noticing that her sister still wore their mother’s crucifix, she carefully unclasped the gold cross and held it clutched in her hand.   Rising, she attached the chain around her neck and crossed herself.

“Thank you, Mr. Mulder.  That was very thoughtful.  And now I must prevail upon you one more time, as I need your assistance in digging a grave.”

“Miss Scully, I do not know if you understood me before.  Our party has continued on without us.  The longer we delay, the harder it will be to catch up to them.”

“Be that as it may, I am not leaving her body here to be… consumed by animals or washed away by the next hard rain.  If you must go, then by all means, go.  But please leave me the shovel.”

She drew herself up to her full, diminutive height and regarded him, her bleary eyes still snapping an icy blue.  He knew there was no point wasting time with objections, since she would only persist with her plan, regardless of what he said.  He unfastened the trenching shovel from its moorage underneath the bed of the wagon.  Looking around, the options for a gravesite were limited.  The riverbank was soft, but would erode away in a flood.  The prairie was flat, but hard as iron.  Finally, he decided on a mound of sand that bordered their clearing, and he began to dig.  There was nothing with which to make a memorial or headstone.  If they ever passed back this way, nothing would remain of Melissa Scully’s grave but grains of sand.

*****

By the time the hole was dug deep enough to discourage predation, it was late afternoon.  Together they lifted the lifeless body and settled it as gently as possible in the earth.  Mulder picked up the shovel, preparing to cover the grave, when Dana spoke for the first time in hours.

“This cannot be all there is.  We cover her with dirt, and then we leave her here and walk away?” 

Mulder thought back to his own experience of losing his father, mother, brother.  What might have made those loses easier to bear?   What did he wish had been different, beyond the simple fact that he did not want to face the world’s benign indifference all alone?

“Your sister is no longer here, Miss Scully.  This body was simply a vessel to hold all that she was.   Her soul, you would say.  But I understand your desire for closure.   I have felt it myself. Why don’t you tell me a story about your sister?  A memory that you want to stay in this place .”

She considered him, standing in his filthy cotton trousers, shirt sleeves rolled up beneath his elbows, a sweaty lock of hair flopping stubbornly across his brow.  What kind of story could she tell him that would summarize a life?

“When we were girls,” she began, “we moved from place to place a great deal.  My father is in the navy, and his duties called him to many different ports.  My mother ran the household, and by the time she was eight, Melissa was a competent helper.  I, on the other hand, spent my days reading and daydreaming.  One Sunday, we were preparing to go to mass, and mother asked me to take two dimes from her purse to give during the offertory.  Even though we were quite poor, it was impressed upon us that there were always others more needy.  But I was distracted by a scene in Frankenstein, which I had been reading in secret that morning, despite it being the Lord’s day, and I completely forgot the coins.  It was only during mass as we were reciting the Nicene Creed that I remembered, and of course by then it was too late.  To make matters worse, I was sitting between my mother and Missy, so there was no way that Maman would not notice that I had nothing to deposit into the plate.  Panic was just beginning to bring tears to my eyes when Missy nudged me with a closed fist.   She opened her palm, and let fall two dimes into my own hand.  She knew me so well…”  Here her voice broke again, and she shook her head, unable to go on.

“She did know you.  She left this world at peace, knowing that you were strong enough to carry on without her.   And that is what you will do.   When you are ready.”

She nodded.   The setting sun broke through the overhanging branches as she crossed herself, “Be at rest, Missy.  I will live as best I can for the both of us.”

As Mulder raised the shovel and began to fill over the grave, she turned away, unable to look.

****

** The Independence Examiner, Pieces of Our History **

**It is a commonly held misconception that violence, particularly by Native Americans, was the greatest threat to the well-being of those pioneers following the Oregon Trail.  In fact, of the over 300,000 pioneers who followed the route during the nineteenth century, only a small handful were killed by Indians.  The real culprits, which led to the death of roughly ten percent of those people who set out from the East, were far less obvious.**

**First and foremost was disease, particularly water-borne bacteria like typhoid, malaria and cholera.  The mid-nineteenth century saw many advancements in the understanding of the spread of disease, but most of these came too late for settlers along the trail.  The very fact that wagon trains collected around areas with fresh, flowing water compounded these issues, as waste contaminated the water source.  The stretch of the trail in Kansas and Nebraska that followed the slow-flowing Platte River became known as cholera corridor, and some wagon trains lost half of their members to this swift-striking illness.**

**The second most common cause of death and injury were falls from wagons.  Children and women wearing long skirts that caught easily in the moving wheels were particularly susceptible.**

**Drowning, either by falling from a capsized ferry boat or by fording a river in flood, was another risk.  The majority of emigrants of the time could not swim.**

**Other threats included food poisoning, accidental shootings, lightning strikes on the open prairie, stampedes of domestic or wild animals, and the usual nature of accidents brought about by fear, inexperience, exhaustion, or all three.  Looking back on this period, Americans came to understand that the Oregon Trail was their nation’s longest graveyard.**


	12. Chapter 12

Platte River, Kansas Territory, May 16, 1845

The next morning, they silently packed up the wagon and began their westward progress once again.  Dana cast one backwards glance at the place where her sister’s grave lay unmarked, wondering if she would recognize it, if she passed this way again.  She knew she would always remember her sister, in every grain of sand.

They came to the place where the main group had stopped when the cholera had first struck.  Underneath crude crosses fashioned from willow branches and wagon strappings were over a dozen mounds of freshly turned earth, some of them only a few feet long.  They toiled onwards, looking grimly ahead.

“What do the Native Americans say of death?” she asked so suddenly he almost reined in Kobi in shock.  It had been hours since they had last spoken.  He pondered what story he could possibly tell that would aid in her grief.  But finally, he decided not to condescend, and instead related something truthful.

“The Cheyenne, who live on the plains west of here, believe that when the world was created, there was no such thing as death.  Little by little the Earth filled up until there wasn’t room for any more beings.  A great meeting of tribal chiefs was called.  One of the chiefs said “Let some people die, and then be reborn.”  Coyote was against this plan, as there would still not be enough food to go around, especially when the dead people came back.  But all the chiefs thought of their wives and families, how much they would miss them if they were to go away forever, and refused to see the sense in what Coyote was saying.  So the chiefs asked a medicine man to build a large house that faced the rising sun, and when a person died, their body would be placed in this house.  The medicine man would then sing a song to the wind spirit, who would breath life into the departed, and they would be reborn.  Everyone thought that this would avoid a great deal of suffering.

Ten days later, the first member of the tribe died, and their body was placed in the grass house, as intended.  The medicine man began to sing his song to the wind, but before the whirlwind could arrive to bring the dead soul back to life, Coyote rushed out of the grass, and slammed the door of the House of the Dead shut.  The whirlwind passed by, and the deceased was not brought back to life.  This is how Death came to be amongst the Cheyenne.”

Dana considered the story as they tread forward.  “So, to the Cheyenne, death is an accident?  A bad trick?”

“Or it is a necessary evil.  Suffering for the sake of our continued existence.  And it is easier to blame that suffering on an external force than to accept that it is simply a part of the bargain we call life.”

She was silent then, and the wind blew over the prairie, bending the ripening grasses to and fro.

*****

Platte River, May 18, 1845

Dana sat on the wagon’s seat, staring past the team’s heads and out into the endless flatness beyond.  The land was so monotonously unchanging, were it not for the constant jarring of the wagon, it would feel as though they were not advancing at all.  There were no markers against which to measure any progress.  This, combined with the rheumy sunlight and continuous dull hum of insects, made her feel as though she had slipped into a fever dream.  She looked to the right and caught a glimpse of Melissa, walking through the waist-high grass and trailing her fingers thoughtfully through the young heads of grain, before the image misted away into the ether.  The wagon rolled on.


	13. Chapter 13

Platte River, May 20, 1845

Mulder knew she was suffering the loss of her sister greatly, but he had no antidote for her pain.  The Native Americans knew how to make many types of medicine from the natural bounty that surrounded them, but so far as he knew, they had no medicine for grief.  It was a feeling with which he was intimately familiar, having lost his mother, his brother, and his childhood home on the plantation all within a span of a few months, while still at the tender age of thirteen.  He wished he could explain to Miss Scully that he understood what she was going through – the unending scrape of mourning against an already raw surface, and the sense that any attempt to escape the vortex of sorrow would be profoundly disloyal to the loved one lost.  Oh, he knew very well what she was going through.  He just had no means of breaking through her stoic silence to explain that to her.

Looking westward, he noticed the horizon was turning a smudgy dark grey, as though night was arriving from the wrong direction.  He sniffed the air, and caught whiff of the damp tang of snow, even though the day was quite warm.  Casting about, he sought the nearest form of shelter, but they were on a particularly bleak stretch of prairie, and the largest trees were little more than shrubs growing along the sandy banks of the sluggish river.

“Miss Scully.”  She didn’t react, seemingly not hearing him, even from a few feet away.

“Miss Scully!”  This time she startled, and looked over at him with somber eyes.

“We have to get to shelter.  There’s a storm brewing.  With hail, if I’m not mistaken.”

She looked all around them and chuckled mirthlessly.

“Where do you suppose we hide, Mr. Mulder?  In the ground?”

It was a morbid thought, and he could guess how the image had sprang so readily to her mind, but now was not the time to address her pre-occupation with her sister’s death.

“If we can steer the wagon down against the river bank, I might be able to open the canopy on one side, and we can shelter beneath it.”

“We can shelter beneath it as it stands.  Why bother dismantling our wagon?”  Even in her current state of mind, she still challenged his every suggestion, and he found it oddly relieving.

“It is not just your head and mine that I am trying to protect, Miss Scully.   Some of the hail stones on the prairies are so large, they have been known to kill livestock.   I don’t need to explain to you how serious our situation would be, were that to happen to our horses.”

She blanched, then nodded.   Together, they managed to maneuver the wagon down a slope in the river bank and onto a sand bar that bordered the water course.  The footing was heavy and wet, and the horses struggled forward slowly.  By now, the wind had picked up considerably, although the sky above them was still clear blue.   Dana descended from the wagon to lighten the load somewhat and looked up at Mulder, still astride Kobi.

“What do you need me to do?”

“Push the wagon from the back.  I’ll use Kobi to pull from the front.  We need to get it close enough to that bank over there that the bows, once unstrung, will form a type of arch that meets the side of the riverbank.”

Between the two of them, they managed to urge the wagon forward until it sat roughly six feet from the sandy wall of the river valley.  The horses had barely stopped moving when Mulder leapt off Kobi and into the back of the wagon, his saddle bag in one hand.

“Unharness Tsiya and Awanika, please, Miss Scully!” he cried out from inside.

The horses were becoming nervous, tossing their heads against the reins and stamping their hooves.  The wind was now quite strong, blowing her skirts away from her legs and grabbing her bonnet.  Unfamiliar with the tack, she began unfastening anything she could, taking care that the mares remained bridled, in case they spooked and bolted from the harness, once she figured out how to unmoor them from the traces and shaft that joined them to the wagon.   A sudden whump, and the canvas side of the wagon flew skyward.  Mr. Mulder had obviously successfully loosened the bows on one side, and the natural elasticity of the hickory lifted the canvas until it was almost parallel to the ground.

“Here, you take Kobi and lead him under the canopy, as close to the wagon as you can get.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to unfasten the wagon…” she began to apologize.

“You did admirably, Miss Scully.  I’ll join you in a moment with the mares.”

“And then?” she asked nervously, looking at the wall of black cloud that was steadily advancing on them.

“And then we hunker down and wait.”

They did not have to wait long.  Mr. Mulder had barely convinced the skittish mares to stand under the low hanging canopy when the first fat drops of rain began to fall, resounding loudly against the canvas. He stood in front of them, trying to calm them with whispers and soft words.  Dana did the same with Kobi, who, standing closest to the wagon, had the most room to toss his head in fright as the noise from the rain grew louder.  The wind gusted from the west, dampening their backs as they tried to shelter two adults and three horses in a space barely large enough for a table.

Then the hail came.  First in small pellets that made a noise like a jumping fish as they hit the river.  And then larger, and faster, and louder, until nothing could be heard but the sound of ice meeting canvas.  She imagined that this was what it was like to be bombarded during wartime, and wondered briefly if Mr. Mulder had fought in a battle, so she could ask him if her theory was true.  She looked at him, and he turned to meet her frightened gaze.  Any question she would ask him, however, he would not hear, so she instead tried to draw comfort from his fathomless eyes.  He grinned in commiseration and gave her a reassuring wink, as if to say, “I’m here with you, and we will get through this together.”

Thirty minutes later, the storm finally passed and the sun shone again. 

*****

_November 1, 1838_

_Dear little brother,_

_I am writing to you from behind enemy lines.  As I intended, last month I ventured to the Mormon settlement of Far West, where Joseph Smith and his followers had intended to build a new Zion.  Non-Mormons are viewed there with great suspicion, as the Missouri militia have sent spies and sowed dissent amongst those within the group who disagree with Smith’s more militant views.  But once Smith recognized me from our earlier meeting in Kirtland, Ohio, I was welcomed as a friend of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, as they now call themselves._

_With Smith’s endorsement, I was able to meet and interview many key members of the Mormon movement, including his lieutenant, a firebrand named Sidney Rigdon, and Brigham Young, the President of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles.   From the inside, Smith’s church is rife with factionalism and paranoia, with each division suspicious of the motives and machinations of the others.  Over this whole seething broth of personalities, Smith has tried to exert a levelling influence, but I fear that he is overmatched._

_Which brings me to my current location, inside a jail cell in Liberty (savour the irony), Missouri.   Two days ago, a group of Mormons were attacked and killed in their settlement at Haun’s Mill by a vigilante militia organized by the local sheriff, a known enemy of the Mormon Church.   Upon hearing news of this brutal attack, Smith and his deputies decided that the risk to their flock was too great, and they surrendered their land in Far West to the state militia and agreed to leave Missouri entirely.   Smith and Rigdon, in whose company I found myself when the leader of the state militia arrived, were arrested and accused of treason.   Finding this charge ridiculous, I protested vociferously, and that is why I now find myself awaiting trial as well, on the less dire charge of obstruction of justice._

_It is times like these, dear brother, that I wish that you were nearer to me.  You could intervene on my behalf and arrange for my release.  Afterwards, you would chide me for my blind idealism, and it would remind me of our youth.  As it is, I shall have to wait out my incarceration with false patience.  At the least, I provides me with plenty of time to write my expose for The Examiner.  The people of Missouri deserve to know what atrocities are being committed by their elected officials._

_Missing you keenly,_

_Samuel_


	14. Chapter 14

North Platte River, May 26, 1845

“Tell me about your parents.”

It was a cool morning, and grey clouds scudded across the sky, pushed by a strong westerly wind.  They had been making slow progress since daybreak, as every small obstacle across their path required that Mr. Mulder unmount, tie Kobi to the wagon, and set to work clearing the branch or smoothing out a deep rut himself.  Adding to their postponement was the fact that the two mares were tired from pulling the wagon for many days without cease.  They had left the Platte, climbing a long, steep hill to leave the river valley behind, and were now following the North Platte into country that became progressively drier and craggier with each passing day.

Most conversation between them was of a practical nature, which gave rise to long silences when all that could be heard was the creak of the wagon on its axles, and the horses' steady hoof beats and laboured breathing.  When they stopped, the never-resting wind played soft tunes against the sharpening angles of the landscape.  It therefore took her a few moments to register his question.

“My parents?  What would you like to know?”

He shrugged, and looked uncomfortable with his role in the instigation of what would generally be considered polite small-talk.  She imagined it wasn’t a facility that came naturally to him, and wondered again at the reason for his impulse.

“Well, they were married very young.  Maman came from a large French Canadian family, as I mentioned, and when she was fifteen she was sent to Boston, to live with a great aunt.  The idea was that she would act as a companion, but I believe it was likely just thinly disguised charity, so there would be one fewer mouth to feed.”

“John McLoughlin is her brother, I believe.”

“Yes.  Do you know what is strange?  I hardly remember him.  We only met him once, as young girls, when we accompanied Maman to her father’s funeral in Lower Canada.  He was an imposing figure, compared to Maman.  Where she was tiny and slight, he was massive, with icy blue eyes, and a lion’s mane of stiff white hair.  He is many year’s older than our mother, and even back then he had already made a name for himself with the Hudson’s Bay Company and had been given the chief factorship in the Far West.  I only have memories of finding him terrifying, and now he is my closest living relative.”

“Except your father,” Mulder corrected.

“Yes, except for Papa.  He met Maman while she was in Boston.  He was on leave from his ship, saw her walking in the street and followed her.   A classic tale of Catholic romance ensued.  Forty-eight hours later, they were married and he was off to sea again.  Missy came nine months later.”  She smiled impishly, and he returned it, happy to hear her mention her sister without noticeable distress.

“Papa was at sea when she was a baby, but then he found work in the shipyards of Norfolk, and that is where I was born.”

“A fellow Virginian.”

She dipped her head in acknowledgement, “Yes, but not for long.  The call of the sea was too strong, and Father signed on for another tour.  We moved to Charleston, then back to Boston, and eventually to Annapolis.”

“What is his rank?”

“A lieutenant,” she answered proudly.  “He worked his way up from seaman, through his hard labour.”

“When did he leave on his last tour?”

“Just a short while before Maman passed away.  He is somewhere in the Caribbean Sea, and is not expected back until two years’ hence.”

“And the Navy would not allow you and your sister to remain on base, until his return?”

“No, since we were of marriageable age.  According to the quartermaster in Annapolis, we were depriving two young men of good cooking and warm beds, and the Navy was not interested in bankrolling our independence.”

He saw a flare of indignation cross her face, which solidified his opinion that she held some progressive views about a woman’s rightful role in society.  Certainly, no-one had ever enforced upon her the finer arts of feminine decorum and politesse, and for that he was endlessly thankful.  He could not imagine making this voyage alone with some prim, uptight woman.  But then, a prim, uptight woman would likely have left him standing in the streets of Independence, when he first proposed his scheme.  She was made of sterner stuff, as he was beginning to appreciate.

“It sounds like a very pleasant childhood,” he remarked absently.  She looked at him askance, because to her mind, it sounded like nothing of the kind.  Yes, she had known love and warmth from both her parents, but her mother had spent her short adult life waiting for her husband to come back from the sea.  And her father would not know that both his wife and his eldest daughter were dead for another two years.  If that was what passed for pleasant in Mr. Mulder’s esteem, she hesitated to imagine what his own youth had been like.

She looked up to ask him about his own family, but he had already ridden ahead, out of earshot.

****

_November 9, 1838_

_Dear little brother,_

_With my ample free time in prison, I have been thinking a great deal about our sainted mother.  I truly believe that she was born before her time.  You are younger, so I do not know how much you remember clearly, but she loved our father without reservation, despite their differences.  He was a brilliant man, morally uncompromising, quick witted and eager to save the world.  The story of why they did not marry is a tragic one, and I do not know if you are familiar with it._

_Our mother was the only child of an emigrant couple who arrived in America from Germany, fleeing the persecution of Jews that had broken out there.   She was bright and bold and beautiful, but acceptable marriage offers were not forthcoming, perhaps because of her religious heritage.  Rather than settle for mediocrity, she completed her teacher’s training and set out to work in a rural Virginian schoolhouse.  It was there that she caught the eye of an older, wealthy plantation owner – our nemesis, Mr. Charles Spender._

_Mr. Spender was already married at this time, but he decided that he wanted to count our mother amongst his possessions.   When she refused to become his mistress, he hired her on as the teacher of the small plantation school he had created for his slaves’ children.  In this way, he could keep her close as well as appeal to her charitable impulses.  I do not know how, but she believed herself heavily indebted to Mr. Spender, and this was to prove her downfall._

_Shortly after these events, Martin Fuchs was hired to be the tutor to Spender’s son, Jeffrey.  He and our mother fell quickly in love, and applied to Mr. Spender for permission to marry, since they were both in his employ.   And this is where Spender’s truly despicable character came to light, because he not only refused them permission to marry, he threatened to publicly expose our mother as his mistress (which she was not) if she didn’t remain on the plantation.   Seven months later, I was born; and eventually you came along as well.  Our father acknowledged us as his children, but was denied the right to live with and protect his family._

_I do not know why they did not sneak away from the plantation, or marry in secret, or confront Spender.  I always felt that there was some invisible bond tying our mother to Spender, but I could never discern what it was.  Eventually, as you know, our father was killed, and our mother followed him nine years later.   She was altered, after father’s death, and were it not for us, I am certain she would have died sooner._

_I hope that you are not angry with me for telling you all of this.  I do so only because I think it might help you better understand who you are._

_Fare thee as well as I fare,_

_Samuel_


	15. Chapter 15

Fort Laramie, North Platte River, June 5, 1845

Dana was despondent.  After more than three weeks of unhalting progress, they had reached the high adobe walls of Fort Laramie on a warm June afternoon, only to find out that the wagon train they had been chasing had left two days’ prior.  Now, the horses were exhausted, and they would need to spend several days letting them rest before continuing onwards.  Further, the passage of over a hundred settlers had nearly emptied the fort of stores, and what remained was priced according to its rarity.  Mr. Mulder delivered this news quietly, watching her carefully to judge her reaction.  She looked around at the dusty central courtyard and the haphazard collection of outbuildings, sighed, then climbed into the back of the wagon without a word and collapsed into the pile of woolen blankets that served as her bed.

When she awoke, the sun was casting long shadows that stretched away from the base of the cottonwood and ash trees.  The slow-moving waters of the nearby river burbled peaceably, and the ringing of iron against anvil echoed from the smithy.   Mr. Mulder was nowhere in the vicinity, so she ate a cold meal of beef jerky and leftover sourdough bread, washed down by cool water from the fort’s well.  When he still had not returned by moonrise, she went looking for him, only to find that neither Mr. Mulder nor Kobi were within the walls of the fort. 

A niggle of suspicion entered her mind, so upon returning to the wagon, she opened her money purse, and discovered that half of her precious stash of dollar coins were gone.  He had fled!  Taken her paltry savings, his horse, and fled.  Noble, even in thievery, he had left her enough money that she would not starve, but her pride still smarted.  She had been foolish to trust him so completely.  And now she was truly alone.  She knew she should be livid, but she could barely muster the energy for chagrin.  Every part of her body felt heavy, weighted down by the millstones of disappointment and loss.  Despite her earlier nap, after checking on the two mares and tucking the purse containing her remaining precious coins inside her drawers, she collapsed onto the blankets and fell into a sombre, dreamless sleep.

Thrushes greeting the dawn were the first sounds she heard, and then a scuffling noise through the canvas walls of the wagon.  Mr. Mulder’s departure meant she no longer had access to a gun, so she grabbed the short-handled axe and crept to the tailgate.  She swung on the back bow of the wagon, brandishing the weapon aloft, only to be met with Kobi’s placid gaze as he chewed contentedly from his feedbag.

“Pray, do not strike my horse, Miss Scully.  He cannot help it if he is devilishly handsome and yet peevishly aloof.”

She gaped in shock at her erstwhile deserter, who was sitting nearby atop his bedroll, easing his foot into a boot.

“Miss Scully?”  She looked like a classical sculpture of Nike, arms aloft, hair a swirl of blood, her chemise draping over her luxurious curves …  He averted his eyes to concentrate on his boots.

“Mr. Mulder?  I thought… rather, I had assumed that…”  She was utterly discomfited.  So much so that she was ignorant of the fact that she stood in the dawning light in only her undergarments.

“I took the liberty of taking some of your money to Fort Platte, a smaller settlement down the river a ways, to see if a better price could be had for foodstuffs.  There was a party of Lakota camped near the gate.  I spent some time getting news of the area from them as well.  It was late when I returned, so I did not wake you.  Were you worried?”  He snuck a look in her direction, then decided to return to the safety of picking lint from his saddle blanket, which doubled as a thin, pungent pillow.

She shook her head silently, still trying to reconcile this impulsive but magnanimous version of her travelling companion with the iniquitous fugitive she had imagined him to be.

“All in all, I was quite successful.  For the price of a bottle of rum, I traded the Lakota for two bushels of cornmeal and about twenty pounds of pemmican, which is dried buffalo meat.  And the store at Fort Platte had both saleratus and coffee, so the grocer yesterday was clearly lying when he said his was the last for a thousand miles …”

“Perhaps he meant for those continuing a forward trajectory only,” she teased, slowly recovering.

He smirked at her impudence, then decided his propriety could bear no more testing.

“I have something else for you, Miss Scully, but perhaps you should dress first.  You appear chilled.”

She looked down at the thin material of her chemise, made semi-opaque by the slanting light, blushed deeply, then ducked back into the wagon as he chuckled.

Glancing at her whalesbone corset, Dana considered its usefulness.  Certainly, it gave her waist a nipped, waspish look that was popular in society back East.  But day after day it bruised her ribs and poked at her tender skin as she sat upright in the wagon.   Perhaps it was time to leave fashion behind, and adopt a more practical approach.

When she re-emerged fully dressed, Mr. Mulder had tidied his bedroll and finished putting on his boots.  He handed her a collection of coins and a black lady’s bonnet in a style popular the previous decade.  She raised an eyebrow in question.

“I apologize for having gone into your purse without your permission, Miss Scully.  I did not want to waken you after the exertions of the past weeks.  You’ll find that it will be only slightly lighter, and this food together with what we have should last us to Fort Bridger.”

“I thank you, Mr. Mulder.  Your resourcefulness is truly extraordinary.   And this?”  She lifted the bonnet.

“Mourning clothes are exceedingly hard to procure along the trail, Miss Scully.  For the lamentable reason that as the journey progresses, most people have someone to mourn.  But I managed to find this bonnet…”

She bit her lip to stop its quivering.  He had somehow known that among her many burdens, the fact that she was unable to properly mourn her sister had been a slight but piercing sliver that dug deeper with every passing day.  She daren’t try to speak, and had no words to fit, so she thanked him with her eyes, and saw by his answering look that he understood.


	16. Chapter 16

North Platte River, west of Fort Laramie, June 10, 1845

Alone under the bruise-black vessel of the heavens, every noise was amplified a hundredfold.  The horses’ soft nickering from their nearby pasture.  The hissing of sap from the fire.  Wind brushing through the pale grass like the hiss of a woman’s skirts.  It should have been a peaceful lullaby after the first arduous day back on the trail, but she could not seem to cut the ties of wakefulness.   Easing off the floor of the wagon, she wrapped a hasty blanket across her shoulders in the interests of modesty and made her way towards the campfire.  He was half-reclined against the cantle of his saddle, limned profile tipped skyward in the orange blush of firelight.  She eased herself to the ground a distance away from him.

Without glancing at her, he began, “Do you know the story of the Lost Boys?  The Blackfoot tribe, who live to the north of here, say that there were once six young brothers who had lost their parents. People were unkind to the boys as they often are to the unfortunate. The boys decided that they no longer wanted to be human. They considered all the other things they might become: if they were flowers, the herds of buffalo would trample or eat them; if they became stones they could be broken; as water they would be drunk and as trees they could burn. Finally, they decided they wanted to be stars. Stars are immortal and always safe in the heavens. Up went the boys to the sky to become stars. The Sun welcomed the boys and the Moon called them her lost children.”  He gestured towards a bright cluster of stars. “And there they still are.”

“Do you want to become a star, Mr. Mulder?”

“I want to find my brother so that I don’t have to, Miss Scully.”

They sat for some time in contemplative silence, but she sensed that he was open to speaking about things that had thus far only been hinted at.  She was about to ask him about his brother when he broke the still.

“My mother passed away when I was thirteen.  She was a teacher on a large plantation in Virginia, and she caught measles from an outbreak amongst her students.  It never occurred to her to isolate herself from them, as they were like children to her.   The plantation owner, Mr. Spender, had promised that he would look out for Samuel and I…”

“Who is Samuel?” she interrupted, although she could guess.

“Samuel is my brother.  He is four years’ my senior.  Of the two of us, he was always the more tempestuous, the more headstrong.  He is a free-spirit.   Shortly after our mother died, when it became apparent that Mr. Spender had no plans to honour his promise to her and support us in society and in setting up careers, Samuel left the plantation.  In fact, he disappeared one night, and for the longest time, I didn’t know if he was alive or dead.   Then, four years ago, a newspaper arrived at the shop in Arlington where I had been apprenticed.  The newspaper was printed in Independence, Missouri, and in it was an article written by one Samuel Mulder.”

“So you came West to find him,” she guessed.

“It took me some time to save enough money to make the trip and finish off my apprenticeship with my master, but as soon as I was able to go, I made my way to the town.   When I got there, I learned that Samuel had once again disappeared the previous fall, but this time he left behind a diary filled with letters to me.  I have no idea if he meant for me to find the diary, but I have to assume that the letters are clues to his potential whereabouts.   I have been looking for traces of him ever since.”

She marvelled at his tenacity.  To love someone so much that one would put one’s life on hold to try to find them, even when the odds were astronomically against such an enterprise.  He was like Don Quixote, tilting at his windmills.

“What will you do, Mr. Mulder, if you cannot locate your brother in California?” she inquired softly.

He looked perplexed, as though she had asked for his plans after the sun stopped rising.

“I will continue to look for him elsewhere, Miss Scully.  He is the only family I have.”

******

_April 12, 1839_

_Dear little brother,_

_Yesterday was the fourth anniversary of our mother’s death.  I can hardly imagine how so much time has passed since I last saw both of you, after spending every day of my life in your presence.  And I wonder, would I recognize you, if we met?  You are seventeen now, and no doubt quite a man._

_I must confess that I got very, very drunk last night.  Blindly, stupidly drunk, so that I had to rely on the kindness of strangers to help me back to my rooming house, where I collapsed into bed, to wake this morning still wearing my boots, feeling like a clobbered hound and smelling like the alley behind a brothel._

_Do you remember her, Fox?   Sometimes it seems to me that my memories of her are fading away, like a letter left out too long in the sun.  And when that happens, I panic, and try to redraw her outline._

_She was slight, and not very tall. We obviously got our height from father. Her hair was thick and dark like yours, and she usually wore it pulled back on her crown, then cascading in loose curls past her shoulders.  Her voice was high, but firm, especially when one of us was misbehaving, which was almost all the time.  God, she was patient with us!  Two high-spirited boys who wanted nothing to do with our lessons, and longed to climb trees or dam creeks or whatever passed for adventure on any given day.  The fact that we can both read and write is testament to her fortitude._

_But what I remember most about her, what hasn’t faded with the passage of time, was her immoveable adherence to doing what was right.  She called it her ‘truth’, and she would not waver from it, no matter what it cost her.  The entire sordid history of her love for our father and her refusal to walk away from her position on Mr. Spender’s plantation is evidence of that._

_May we both have inherited her strength._

_Samuel_


	17. Chapter 17

 Prospect Hill, West of Fort Casper, June 28, 1845

It had been raining in sheets since before daybreak, and the wind gusts conspired to ensure that neither oilcloth nor felt hat nor bonnet could protect their skin from the lashings of rain.   The horses lowered their heads in protest, and their progress became slower and slower as the formerly dusty trail became slick with mud.

Mulder had been terse and moody all day, riding up ahead of the team and responding to her few questions or observations with one-word replies.  Finally, they stopped speaking altogether, each sinking into their independent misery.

On a slow rise, the horses finally gave up entirely, unwilling to labour against both gravity and the suck of mud.  Upon noticing that the team was no longer following him, Mulder returned to the wagon with a baleful sigh, as though it was her fault the weather was dismal and the animals exhausted.  She shot him an angry look in reply.   Groaning, he dismounted and tied Kobi to the wagon’s side railing.

“If you’d be so kind as to step down and encourage the horses from the front, I’ll try pushing from the rear.”  It was the most he’d said to her all day, and then he disappeared down the furrowed path beside the wagon.

Pulling her black bonnet tight under her chin and resigning herself to sodden undergarments, she prepared to swing down from driver’s seat when she heard him call out.

“Dana.”  She bristled at the brazenness of someone who wasn’t kin using her Christian name.  Mulder was an oddity, but up until now, his decorum had been above reproach.

“Dana, grab the rifle from the scabbard on Kobi.  Be careful, as it’s loaded.”  Something about the pitch of his voice told her this was an emergency, and not just a precautionary gesture.  She leaned precariously out of the wagon to grab the stock of the gun.  It was nearly as tall as she was, but she maneuvered it carefully around to the other side of the wagon, where Mulder was standing ankle-deep in damp earth, his gaze fixed on the trampled grass immediately to his left.  Even over the percussive rain and the tympani of her own heart, she could hear the telltale vibration of a rattlesnake.

“Hold the gun upright, like a standard, and throw it towards me.”  She hadn’t realized it was possible for someone to speak without moving even the tiniest part of their body.

“Mr. Mulder, I do not like your plan.  What if I miss?  And even if I don’t, by the time you catch the rifle, aim and fire…”

“Miss Scully, as eager as I am to discuss battlefield logistics with you, I have another pressing engagement.  Would you please do as I say and throw me the rifle?”

There was silence from the wagon, and he thought she was sulking at his cross words.  She would have plenty of time to criticize his civility once he was dead, he contemplated sourly.  Then he heard the distinctive snick of a hammer cocking, and before he could think of an appropriate response, the rain-soaked air exploded with the slam of ignited gunpowder.   He saw a number of things happen instantaneously, which he later acknowledged was impossible.  The striped wedge of the rattler’s head flew upwards in a spray of pulverized flesh.  The horses lunged forward in fear, unsticking the wagon and causing it to lurch uphill.  And Dana, water-logged, fever-eyed and triumphant, fell backwards onto the wagon’s floorboards with a soft cry.

“Miss Scully!”  He ran to her aid, but she was already lifting herself carefully to a seated position, the weapon by her side.

“If you are quite finished with your investigations of the local reptilian population, Mr. Mulder, I seem to have inadvertently solved the issue with our lodged wagon.  Shall we carry on so that we can find some means of shelter from this biblical deluge?”

He stared at her as though dumbstruck, while the water poured off the brim of his hat.

“Where did you learn to shoot a rifle?”

“We are both fortunate, Mr. Mulder, that while you learned aboriginal dialects and trail finding skills, I was raised in a family that saw no harm in their daughters learning to fire a weapon, as well as master the niceties of baking and petitpoint.”

“I am fortunate indeed.  Thank you, Miss Scully.  You are an excellent shot.”

“You might want to reserve final judgement until you have seen my petitpoint, Mr. Mulder.  I said my family saw no harm in the endeavour, not that I necessarily excelled equally at all tasks.”

That night, the showers persisted.  The terrain was devoid of trees, so they sheltered in the mouth of a canyon, its crumbling mud walls blocking at least the worst of the wind-blown rain.  It was so wet, not even Mulder’s exceptional guiding skills could set spark to tinder, and so they were without the comfort and heat of a fire.  The light in the canyon was dim, so they lit the small whale oil lantern and hung it carefully from one of the bows of the interior of the wagon.   After a cold supper of soda biscuits and pemmican, washed down by rainwater collected in a barrel as it ran off the wagon’s roof, they sat in silence and listened to the drumming rain, faces falling in and out of shadow as the feeble flame of the lantern danced.

Dana let out a sigh.  She was weary, but it was too early to sleep. She could not face the idea of sending Mr. Mulder out to sleep beneath the wagon, where he would exchange slight shelter from the rain for a damp, muddy mattress.

“Tell me a story, Mr. Mulder.”

He appraised her with his typical curious, open gaze.  Something about his demeanour made him extremely approachable.  It had been like that since the beginning, and it had played no small part in her decision to trust him back in Missouri.  After two months in his steady company, she felt there was nothing she could not say to him.

“What kind of tale would you like to hear, Miss Scully?  I am an accumulator of stories, so I will need you to be more specific.”

“Tell me a story about a flood, then.”

He pulled his full lower lip between his teeth as he considered, and she allowed herself to acknowledge, for the first time, that he was an uncommonly attractive man.  Like his disarming conduct, it snuck up on you unawares.  He began to speak.

“The Lakota tribe of the northern plains speak of strange beings, with thick matted hair, that live at the bottom of a bog. These things have no eyes, but they are always ferociously hungry, and from their bodies water flows in a constant stream. The beings can change from one dwelling place to another at will. Then the old place where they lived dries up; but a fresh spring of water gushes from their new abode. The water of this spring is warm in winter; but in summer it is as cold as ice.  Anyone who wants to drink from one of these magic springs must first offer a prayer, or else he may become sick.”

At this juncture, she rolled her eyes.

“Do I detect a hint of skepticism, Miss Scully?”

“You do, Mr. Mulder.  It is understandable that a people like the Lakota, without the benefit of science to explain certain natural phenomena, would devise a supernatural explanation for them.  What is less understandable is that you, an educated man, might lend some credence to these stories.”

“I did not say one way or the other whether I believed this story, Miss Scully.  Now who is jumping to unfounded conclusions?”

She clucked her tongue in dismissal, and he grinned.

“May I continue?”   She made a sweeping ‘by your leave’ gesture.  He cleared his throat, then continued, his voice hypnotic and low in the close confines of the wagon.

“As the Lakota tell it, long ago, one of these Bog Beings was pulled out of its bog and carried to a nearby camp.  He was given a special tipi in which to live, but so much water flowed all around that the people were almost drowned.  Then those who were not submerged offered the Bog Being food, in appeasement. He sat motionless, gazing at them. But the food vanished, even though no one saw the Bog Being eat it.”

A slight snort escaped his audience.

“Very well, Miss Scully.  I have fulfilled your request for a story about a flood.  I am sorry it lacked the scientific precision of, say, that of Noah and his ark.”

She considered this for a moment, and then conceded, “I suppose you have a point, Mr. Mulder.  Every tribe and nation have origin myths and fairy tales that help to tie them to their past and explain the irregularities of their present.  The stories of one’s own tribe are learned in childhood, and therefore unquestioned, while those of others sound foreign and strange.  No doubt the Lakota would find some of our biblical stories far-fetched.”

He nodded in agreement, but he was secretly thrilled at her ability to divorce her ingrained human prejudice from her sharp intellect.   In his experience, it was a rare trait, and one that he’d never before encountered in the fairer sex.  Miss Dana Scully was a singular woman.

They lapsed back into silence, and he decided it was time to brave the elements.  He bent to collect his bedroll, but she stopped him with a small hand on his shoulder.

“Please don’t go out there, Mr. Mulder.  You will be soaking wet before you even get beneath the wagon, and then spend the night lying freezing in the mud.”

He wondered if she realized she was clutching his arm.  He had no idea what she was proposing, but all alternatives were best avoided, for both their sakes.

“It’s alright, Miss Scully.  I have slept in far worse.   It is getting late, and we will have a hard day tomorrow, with the trail a mire.  I should let you rest.”

She shook her head stubbornly.  “You will be of no use to me if you fall ill.”

He felt the temptation of a night sheltered from the deluge licking at his heels, calling his better judgement into question.

“What would you propose instead?”  Her expression made it obvious she hadn’t thought that far ahead, which he found amusing.  If this was a seduction, it was an artless one.

“You could … lie lengthwise with your head towards the gate of the wagon, and I would stretch crossways…” her voice fell away, as she realized there simply wasn’t enough room for two adults to lay down in the cramped wagon unless they were virtually in each other’s arms.  She blushed, and looked out into the inky night instead of at him.

He stood, and she assumed he had resigned himself to a wet night under the wagon.  He snuffed the lantern, picking up his bedroll.  But instead of climbing over the gate, he moved towards the front of the wagon.  He sat with his back pushed into a wooden corner, eased off his boots, and draped his unfurled blanket over his bent legs.

Understanding his intention, she lay, fully dressed, with her head facing away from him.  Their feet bumped briefly together, and she drew her knees quickly away.

“You shall waken with a stiff neck,” she whispered.

“Again, I have fared far worse.  Goodnight, Miss Scully.”

“Goodnight.”


	18. Chapter 18

Independence Rock, Sweetwater River, July 4, 1845

All morning, the looming hulk of Independence Rock had been growing larger and larger on the horizon, looking like the back of a white whale breaching the sea of the prairie (according to Dana) or a slumbering giant (according to Mulder).  Finally, they pulled into the scant shade the massive outcropping afforded at noontime and led the horses down the heavily rutted trail to the river to drink.

Mulder’s attention was drawn to the far bank of the Sweetwater, where a flock of birds chattered noisily in a line of shrubs.  He handed Dana Kobi’s reins, saying, “May I borrow your apron, Miss Scully?”

Perplexed, and assuming this was another of his bad jokes, she didn’t answer, but he continued to look at her expectantly.

“You’re serious?  Are you planning on baking us a cake, to celebrate our arrival at Independence Rock on none other than July 4th?”

“Something to that effect, yes.  Your apron, please?  If you start the fire, I’ll be back shortly.”

Bemused, she unknotted her apron and handed it to him.  To her utter shock, he then slipped his suspenders from his shoulders and began to unbutton his loose linen shirt, reaching behind his neck to pull it off.   She quickly turned her attention to the horses, but not before getting a glimpse of a lean and muscular masculine torso wading into the hip-high waters of the river, her apron held aloft above his head.   She busied her flittering hands starting the fire and boiling water for coffee.  After fifteen minutes, he returned, wearing a triumphant grin, a dry shirt and sodden trousers that clung to his long legs.  Carefully unfolding her apron, he presented his bounty – wild cherries.

“Leave the coffee to brew.  I have something I want to show you.”

They walked to the northwest face of the monolith, where the upslope was less steep.  Stepping onto the rock face, Mulder extended his hand, and with a moment’s consideration, she took it.  His grasp was strong, but it loosened as she steadied herself on the short walk to the flat summit.  Near the top, he pointed down at their feet.  Crudely carved into the granite were names, initials and dates.

“It’s become a bit of a tradition amongst the pioneers to inscribe their mark here.  To leave something for posterity, I suppose.” 

She looked thoughtful. “To celebrate the fact that they’d survived.   That they were on their way to freedom.  Maybe that’s really why they call it Independence Rock.”

“Maybe.”  He gave her hand a light squeeze, then opened her apron on a shelf of rock and gestured for her to have a seat.  They consumed the sour cherries in silence, prairie wind riffling their hair.  Mulder’s pants dried quickly in the hot sun.

After a time, he reached for his Bowie knife in its sheath attached to his belt.  “Would you like me to carve your name, Miss Scully?  As testament to your independence?”

She smiled thoughtfully, then shook her head.  “No, thank you, Mr. Mulder.  I have not yet reached the point where I can celebrate my survival.   And I do not need a monument to tell me that I am free – I feel it in my bones.”

He nodded and reclined again, his hands folded behind his head, eyes on the aquamarine sky.

Thinking her dismissal might have caused offense, she added, “Thank you for the cherries, Mr. Mulder.  After so many biscuits and jerky, fresh fruit tastes especially sweet.”

“You’re welcome.  I was just thinking … we are a social unit of two, and we spend every hour of the day together.  Perhaps a little less formality is called for.”

She glanced at him, alert to the possibilities of what he might say next.

“If it doesn’t bother you overly, I’d prefer it if you called me Mulder.  Mr. Mulder makes our relationship sound so… genteel, and I have not used a mirror to shave in over two months.”

She grinned in relief.  “Not Fox in Winter?”

He grimaced, and shook his head.  “No, Fox was meant to honour the family name on my father’s side.  I was never particularly fond of it as a given name, and as a young man I began using my mother’s family name instead.  Mulder is best.  Just Mulder.”

“Very well, Mulder.  I would suggest that you call me “Scully” in return, but two strange names seems overly eccentric, for so small a sampling.”

“I could call you Sacagawea.”   She shook her head, not understanding the reference.

“Sacagawea was the Indian woman who accompanied Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their famous expedition across the continent.   She was born Shoshoni, but married a French Canadian trapper who served as one of the excursion’s interpreters.   At one point while mounting the upper Missouri River to the north of here, a boat capsized and many important artifacts, including Lewis and Clark’s journals, fell overboard.   Sacagawea dove into the cold water and saved them.  Then, when the expedition reached the mountain passes of her youth, she guided them safely across and brokered the aid of her tribe to secure horses for the group.  Without Sacagawea, the entire voyage might well have ended in disaster.”

“She sounds like an amazing woman.   Isn’t it interesting, how history remembers the exploits of our heroes, but rarely our heroines?”

“Well, I remember her.  And now you will as well.  I suppose that will have to suffice for now.”

“Yes, and since her name already has a place in the annals of our memories, I think you should simply call me Dana.”

“I would like that.   Now, we should get going, if we are to take advantage of this fine weather.  Dana.”  He tried out her name shyly, and it struck her that he was the first adult outside of her family to call her by her given name.  It felt oddly intimate, but she imagined she would get used to it.

She surveyed the endless expanse of grassland to the east, smudged by dark smears of sage, then turned to the laddered shadows of the mountains to the west.

“Missy would have loved it here.”

****

** The Independence Examiner, Pieces of Our History **

**With the stroke of a pen in 1803, Thomas Jefferson doubled the land area of the United States in a bargain known as the Louisiana Purchase.  The bankrupt French republic needed fifteen million dollars more than they needed a questionable claim to sovereign rights in a territory half a world away.**

**Subduing or even contacting the numerous native tribes of the Great Plains was not first on Jefferson’s list of priorities.  He quickly granted them rights of occupancy and self-government – rights that proved as porous as the parchment they were written on in the long run.   No, what Jefferson wanted, or thought he wanted, lay three thousand miles to the west, on the shores of the Pacific Ocean: a route to Asia.  The intervening riches were incidental.**

**So it was that one of the first acts that Jefferson concluded after the ink dried on the Louisiana Purchase was to commission an expedition to map the Missouri River to its headwaters, and then to seek an overland route to the Pacific.  He entrusted this vital effort to none other than his personal secretary, Meriwether Lewis.  Lewis in turn sought the aid of his former military colleague, William Clark.   Together with twenty-nine hand-selected men, Lewis and Clark spent two years mapping the massive Missouri River system, breaching the fortress of the Rocky Mountains at great peril, and attempting to strike a delicate balance between enforcing the sovereign might of the United States government and encouraging trade with the local tribes they encountered.**

**In this latter respect, the expedition was a resounding success, as the years after 1806 saw a steady increase in the flow of American trappers and merchants into the Great Plains, and a corresponding spike in the volume of furs and other precious items that returned eastward.**


	19. Chapter 19

Devil’s Gate, West of Independence Rock, July 5, 1845

After their impromptu picnic at Independence Rock, they tried to make haste towards the continental divide.  The Sweetwater River wound through the landscape, and the trail followed its northern bank at a slight distance.  As the evening sun bowed towards the blue-grey mountain ridges ahead, its light suddenly pierced a cliff-face they were approaching, shining as though through a keyhole.

“Mulder…”

“According to the Shoshoni people, this land was once terrorized by a ferocious beast, resembling a gigantic wild boar.  This beast prevented the Shoshoni hunters from approaching these rocks, although animals were plentiful here.  So the chief organized a massive party of braves to besiege the beast and kill it.  Hemmed in by the rocks, the men shot the beast over and over, until it was riddled with arrows.  Enraged, the beast drew its tusks across the landscape, tearing a massive hole in the cliff, through which it escaped.  Today, the local tribe calls it Devil’s Gate.”

“It’s more likely that the river slowly eroded the rock until it reached the level of the surrounding plain.”

“Neither of our stories can be corroborated through observation, Dana.  But mine was told to me by an old Lakota guide who knew every hillock and canyon of this land, the names of every plant and animal, and yet had never so much as darkened the doorway of a schoolhouse in his life.  I am inclined to believe him.”

“Is there anything that you are not inclined to believe, Mulder?”

“I’m doubtful you’re ever going to accept something I say without question, Dana,” he replied with a crooked grin.

“Well, that’s something, then.”

****

 South Pass, Continental Divide, July 11, 1845

They had been climbing gently from their creekside camp since morning.  The views were expansive, and everywhere sweet grass and ripening wild rye rippled like the coat of a well-groomed palomino.  The air was warm, but there was a slight metallic tang of snow, wafting down from the high peaks to the north and west.

Mulder reined in Kobi and glanced in all directions.  She halted the team beside him, knotted the reins and tried to stretch out her back.   Even without her whalesbone corset, sitting for long periods of time at the helm of the wagon was agonizing, and she wondered how Mulder fared astride his horse, before thinking better of that line of inquiry.

Something had caught Mulder’s eye, and he was looking fixedly towards the north, where the abutment of a range of mountains dove suddenly down to meet the prairie below.  The horses, likewise, had caught scent of something and had their ears tipped in that same direction.  None of her companions seemed alarmed, so she stood carefully to augment her height, and from that vantage could make out three dark shapes approaching.

“Settlers?” she asked Mulder.

“No, locals, I think.  If you don’t mind, I’d like to speak with them before we continue.”

“Of course.  I’ll just be …”  She gestured vaguely in a southerly direction, and he nodded and looked away when he took her meaning.  The flatter the land, the harder it was to ignore the other’s biological necessities.

Mulder rode Kobi several yards away from the wagon, in an effort to provide her with more privacy.  The approaching figures began to coalesce, and he could make out a grizzled man with oddly feminine hair dressed all in buckskin.  He led a mule, and beside him walked a beautiful Arapaho squaw in her native costume.   He checked that his gun was loaded, but left it in the scabbard, then swung down to the ground, groaning as his feet touched soil for the first time in hours.  Leading Kobi, he approached the mountain man and his companion.

 

The men had been speaking for several minutes before he sensed Dana approach.  He was surprised when she stopped immediately at his arm, brushing ever so-slightly against him.

“Miss Scully, may I introduce Mr. Ringo Langley and his … wife, Cocheta.  Mr. Langley, this is my travelling partner, Miss Dana Scully.  She is the niece of Dr. John McLoughlin, and has become separated from her wagon train by hardship.  We are aiming to rejoin her group in Fort Bridger.”

“How d’you do, ma’am.  Yer right lucky to have so fine a guide as Mr. Mulder here.  He’ll catch you up with yer folks, I’ll reckon.   But Mr. Mulder, you ought to use the cutoff on up ahead a few miles.  If you head due west right after ye cross the Dry Sandy, you’ll shorten yer trip by four days!”

“And miss Fort Bridger, entirely, Mr. Langley.”

“Yeah, but you can meet up wit yer group in Soda Springs, or ferder down the track at Fort Hall.  What happens when ye git to Fort Bridger, and dey ain’t der no more?”

Mulder looked at Dana, and she blinked her assent.

“Mr. Langley, I’d be very obliged if you could tell me more about this cutoff.”

“Shure, shure.  But first tings first.  Yer gonna be needin’ more water.  That lil’ rain barrel ain’t gonna be enuf.”

“But surely with all the streams running off of those mountains, Mr. Langley ...” Dana interjected, before considering it wasn’t her place to second-guess the advice of kindly strangers.  She noticed Mr. Langley’s Indian companion regard her with curiousity.

Mr. Langley merely laughed.  “Aye, it’s not the quantity of water that’ll be a problem, Miss Scully.  There be water a’plenty.  You jus’ can’t drink it.  The cutoff passes through land that’s pickled in salt, an’ all the water’s brackish.  You’d need to carry enough water for you an’ yer stock.”

“Well, since there’s no cooper in the vicinity to make us another barrel, I don’t see that we have much choice.  We’ll have to head for Fort Bridger and take our chances.  A single wagon can travel faster than a train over flat land.”  Mulder tried to put a positive spin on the situation for Dana’s sake, even though for over a month, they had never so much as caught sight of the Oregon-bound wagon train ahead of them.

“Well, that’s true.  But I have an ideer, if you’d be interested, Mr. Mulder.”  Here Mr. Langley eyed Dana with an acquisitory air that made Mulder place his hand on her back, hackles raised.  Mr. Langley continued on, un-noticing.  “Miss Scully, yer a slight lady, an’ I bet you’ve got a dress er two you could spare in dat der wagon.  I ne’er did get my Cocheta a weddin’ gift, an’ she’s about yer size.  I’d trade you two large waterskins made’a deer hide fer one of yer pretty dresses.”

Dana laughed out loud.  She would happily sacrifice a dress in return for a shorter route and a greater chance to catch up to the wagon train.

“Of course, Mr. Langley.  Cocheta, come to the wagon with me.  You can have the pick of my day dresses directly from my trunk.”

******

** The Independence Examiner, Pieces of Our History **

**Few roles in the cast of characters on the American playbill looms so large upon the stage as the mountain man.  Daniel Boone.  Davy Crockett.  Jedediah Smith.  Kit Carson.  These men were a kind of prototype for what it meant to be American: physically imposing, crafty, braver than lions and entrepreneurial.   They saw their zenith between the 1810s and 1840s, when over three thousand men poured into the Rocky Mountains in search of what was known as “soft gold”.  Beaver pelts.**

**It seems strange to imagine today, but the craze for beaver pelts in the nineteenth century arose purely because of the fashion to line men’s hats in the luxurious material.  At a time when every gentleman or pretender wore a hat in all seasons, this amounted to a huge demand for fur, and that is where the mountain men figured.  So great was the potential for profit that businessmen organized companies of trappers to work for them, meeting at a rendez-vous every spring to hand over the previous winter’s haul of pelts and indulge in some epic revelry.  One of these companies began the financial dynasty of no less a family than the Astors (the founders of Astoria, Oregon).**

**Not all mountain men were affiliated with companies, however.  Some eked out a solitary existence in the wilderness.   Others found companionship and even matrimony amongst the local native population.  But regardless of their way of life, by 1850 the era of the mountain man was at an end.   Fashion, as it always does, had moved on, but not before the beaver population was decimated.   Many trappers returned to the East, full of incredible tales of their time beyond the borders of society.  Others simply disappeared into the mists of time.**


	20. Chapter 20

Big Sandy River, Continental Divide, July 11, 1845

They camped that night on the banks of the Big Sandy River, the water murmuring in accompaniment to their casual after-dinner conversation.  Mulder pointed out that from now on, any water they saw was en route to the Pacific Ocean, just as they were, and she smiled.

“Did Mr. Langley have any interesting news to share with you, when you spoke?  Had he heard of Samuel?”

He seemed surprised by her inquiry. “He had heard no word of Samuel.  He spent the winter and spring in the high mountains, setting and minding his fur traps.  Besides Cocheta and the odd grizzly bear, I doubt Mr. Langley had spoken to anyone in almost six months.”

“She wasn’t really his wife, was she?” she asked, curious, yet knowing she shouldn’t be.

“Umm, no.  Not in the religious sense.   They may have what is known as a ‘country marriage’, where a layperson like a clerk or doctor blesses the union, but it is not officially a marriage.”

“Is that common, in these parts?” She feigned casual interest.

“It’s not uncommon.  Present company excepted, there are hardly any unmarried white women between Missouri and the western coast, and even solitary men get lonely, and need, er… companionship.”

“Present company excepted?”  she asked shyly, looking out into the dark to avoid his sudden look.

“Oh. Yes.  Present company very much excepted.”

“Why, might I ask?  You don’t strike me as a particularly doctrinal man, Mulder.  And as you say, even solitary men get lonely.”

“I suppose to answer that, I’d need to tell you more about my youth.”

“I would like to hear anything you’d care to tell me.”

“Well, I already told you about Samuel, and how he moved west to Missouri once my mother passed away.   The reason he was obliged to do so is that he is… we both are… illegitimate.  Our mother was a school mistress on a plantation in Virginia, and our father a tutor to the plantation owner’s son.  They never married, and my father died when I was four.  I have carried the heavy weight of being considered a bastard my whole life.  So I would never dare risk passing it on to another.”

She glanced at him in profile as he stared into the fire, and came to understand a bit more of what drove him as a man.  He was searching for the one last tie that bound him to normalcy and to his past.

“Your mother must have been an incredibly strong woman to raise two boys to become such courageous, resilient men.”

“She was.” He smiled fondly, as though picturing his mother before him.

“What was her name?”

“Greta Mulder.  Her name was Greta.”

Dana smiled, then turned pensive.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know.  It’s just… since Missy died, I’ve been thinking a lot.  About death and what happens to the spirit afterwards.  As a child, I was taught to believe in heaven and hell, and they seemed like acceptable answers, until I had some firsthand experience to apply them to.”

“What do you mean, exactly?”

“Well, Melissa died without a final confession, so according to the Church, she cannot enter heaven.  And yet she did nothing wrong in this world.  Certainly, she might have been prideful or vain on occasion, but nothing that one could logically say earned her eternal hellfire.  And yet that is what my upbringing would have me believe.”

“You’re an intelligent woman, Dana.  You must have noticed these discrepancies before between what organized religion would have us believe, and what logic would dictate.”

“Yes, that’s true.  But since Melissa died…”

“What?”

“I… it sounds crazy, and at first I thought it was just my grief, but… I see her, sometimes.  Walking beside the wagon, or sitting beneath a tree along a riverbank.  Just for a moment, and then she fades away.”

Rather than scoff, Mulder looked thoughtful, for which she was grateful.

“Does she seem happy, when you see her?”

“I… I suppose she does, yes.  I hadn’t thought about it.  It’s such a far-fetched notion, I haven’t scrutinized it overmuch.”

“I can tell you what I believe, if you would like.”

“Yes, please.”  She was relieved to have spoken about her experience.  Having it out in the open and shared with Mulder made the burden seem lighter.

“The common interpretation is that ghosts, or apparitions, or whatever you might call these sightings, are manifestations of the soul of the deceased, left behind here on Earth, or come back to fulfill some sort of purpose.”

She nodded, listening to him intently.

“But it’s my belief that they are really visions brought about by those left behind, to tell us something we need to know.”

“So you think that it’s my imagination?”

“No, I didn’t say that.  I think your need to feel the presence of your sister, to know that she is still with you in some way, has made her soul visible to you.  Maybe it was always there, but it is your desire to feel connected to her that allows you to see her.”

Dana considered this viewpoint, and while she saw the poetic comfort in it, it was impossible to validate and therefore ultimately unfulfilling.  But something else about Mulder’s speech struck her.

“You sound as though you have some first hand experience in these matters.”

He smiled ruefully.

“Yes, after my mother died when I was thirteen and I was sent away to Alexandria, I was miserable.  Everyone I loved in the world was gone: my father, my mother, even my older brother had left me.  I worked very hard all day in the shop, but late at night, I would lie in my bunk and weep like an infant.  Until one night, I looked across the room, and there was my mother, sitting in a rocking chair, darning some clothes, just as she had done for many nights when I was a child.  At first I tried to interact with her, but she never heard me or looked at me.  She would just sit there, rocking and humming a tune while she sewed, until she eventually faded away.  I realized this would have been the sound I fell asleep to as a boy, and that I’d somehow made her re-appear, for my own comfort.  After that, when she arrived, I simply closed my eyes and listened to the creak of the wood and the swish of her skirt, until I fell asleep.”

Tears of empathy filled her eyes, and she lay her hand on his arm briefly.

“Do you still see her?”

“No, not for many years.  I guess I stopped needing her to fall asleep eventually, and so she stopped appearing to me.  But it’s comforting to know that should I need her, she would come back.”

“Do you ever…?” she stopped, not wanting to upset him.

“See Samuel?” he guessed her question.  “No, I never have.  What that means, I’m afraid to guess.”

After a lengthy pause, he asked, “Do you know why the Lakota, whose lands we passed through some weeks ago, tattoo themselves?”  When she indicated that she did not, he continued,

“Upon the death of a Lakota man or woman, an old woman greets them on the Ghost Road.  If, upon examination, she finds they have a tattoo, she lets them pass and they travel to the haven of Many Lodges.  But if the deceased does not have a tattoo, the old woman pushes them from a cloud and they fall to earth, where they wander, restless and whistling, for all time.   When a relative hears a ghost whistling, he must leave his lodge and make a loud noise.  If the ghost speaks to this relative, and the relative answers, then they are sure to die soon.”

“Missy never speaks to me, when I see her,” she confessed quietly.

“That is good to hear.  I have grown rather fond of your company.”

They shared a private smile, then went back to staring at the fire, each lost in their own thoughts.


	21. Chapter 21

Thomas Fork Crossing of Bear River, July 20, 1845

The rain over the past two days had swollen the Bear River from a summer brook into a fast-flowing river.   The stony bottom was visible through the ice-cold mountain current, but there was no way to tell if it was two or six feet deep, so clear was the water.

“I’ll go first with Kobi, to make sure it’s safe to cross, then you can follow with the wagon.”

“Be careful, Mulder.”  He looked surprised for a moment, then gave her a grateful wink before urging Kobi into the stream.

Nearly halfway across, the water was still below Kobi’s girth.  He twisted in his saddle.  “I think it’s shallow enough for the wagon to…”

He never finished his sentence, as just then Kobi’s hindquarters slipped on the smooth stones and he scrambled in the swift current, letting out a frightened whinny,   The lurch threw Mulder from the saddle, landing upriver of his horse, who had since righted himself.   Mulder braced against Kobi’s shoulder and managed to stand as well, waist-deep.

“Mulder, are you alright?”

“Yes,” he called out, before adding _sotto voce_ “but I may never sire an heir.” He started to pick his way carefully to the far bank.  Suddenly, a forlorn cry escaped him.   Dana saw him looking down river in utter disbelief.   Following his gaze, she saw the tan oilskin covering Samuel’s diary floating swiftly downriver.  The current must have ripped it from his inner jacket pocket, where it was always stowed.  Not even thinking, she jumped from the wagon seat, ran as fast as she could along the bank of the river, then waded into the freezing water.  Her skirts soon became heavy and swirled around her calves like a choking vine.  A split second decision, and she dropped to her knees and began to pull herself downstream with broad strokes.  Her lungs ached with cold and her arms quickly felt like brittle sticks, but she persevered.  After several minutes of struggling forward, a moment of luck as the oilskin package floated into a small eddy and she was able to grasp it.  Closer now to the opposite bank, she dragged herself to shore and collapsed, gasping, onto the pebbly beach.

“Dana!”  He was sprinting down the shore towards where she lay.  Skidding to a halt beside her, he dropped to his knees and pushed the wet lashes of hair away from her bone white face.  His hands skittered between her head, wrists and ankles, unsure where he could touch without offending her, but desperate to warm her icy skin.

“Whatever were you thinking?” he chastised.

“What would Sacagawea say, if I allowed Samuel’s journal to be lost?” she tried to joke, but her jaw was clenched against waves of tremors.

He shook his head wonderingly, but panicked as her eyes rolled back into their sockets, blue irises disappearing like sunsets behind her eyelids.

“Dana, I don’t want to give offense, but these wet items need to be removed.  It’s the only way you’ll get warm and avoid hypothermia.”

She nodded, but he could tell she’d barely heard him.   He whistled for Kobi, leaping into the saddle.  Quickly, he forded the river once again, grabbing the wagon team by the lead bridle, then urging them across the river.  Without dismounting, he grabbed as many pieces of bedding as he could hold from the floor of the wagon, then cantered back downstream.  She was shuddering in spasms now.

“Dana?”  He had to bend his ear to her bluish lips to make out her reply.

“Cold.  So cold.”

“Hold on.”

He lay two of the thickest blankets on the ground and rolled her gently onto them.   One by one, he unfastened the tiny buttons of her calico dress until it was loose enough to peel over her shoulders and down her arms.   The knotted cloth ties around the waist clung and resisted his clumsy fingers, so he cut the belt deftly with his Bowie knife.  The heavy fabric of her bodice, skirt and petticoat flooded down her legs, leaving her waterlogged chemise and drawers soaked to nearly transparent.  Mulder paused and bit his lip in indecision.  His best hope for countering hypothermia was to remove all her wet clothes and use his own body heat to warm her, as well as the blankets.  But his clothing was wet as well, although he hadn’t spent nearly as much time in the frigid water.  Propriety dictated that he leave her alone and ignore the dark smudges of her nipples and mons that he could make out through her remaining clothing.  Of course, propriety dictated that they should never have been on the trail alone together in the first place, and yet here they were.  It seemed a shame to lose the best travelling companion he’d ever had to Victorian standards and a bad chill.

Decision made, he stripped to his damp breeches, lifted her chemise over her head and eased her drawers past her tiny booted feet.  She complied weakly, like a semi-animate rag doll.  He gathered her in his arms and pulled the remaining blankets over their bodies.  Even chilled and half-conscious, she was still the loveliest creature he’d ever briefly set eyes on.  Clearing his throat and pulling his hips back somewhat, he proceeded to rub the blankets against her goose-fleshed skin, creating heat by friction.

“I don’t know if you’ll remember any of this, Dana, but I want you to know that I’m being a perfect gentleman, no matter how it pains me.  Well, mostly a perfect gentleman.  I might have peeked.”  She shivered on, and he ceased babbling and simply concentrated on warming her.

****

Later that night, the campfire was roaring to nearly twice its usual size.  Dana dozed in her blanket envelope, several feet away, and Mulder sipped his coffee and contemplated the intricacies of fate. 

He had never wanted a partner on his explorations, having never met someone whose company he cared to keep for longer than a week.   And he had forsworn intimacy after the heartbreak of his youth, believing himself destined to solitary, celibate pursuits.   Yet he now found himself in the company of a woman whom he admired and desired, and what was he doing?  He was helping her decamp to a faraway destination.  Of course, if the hardships she faced while in his company were any indication, she would do well to get away from him while she still could.  He sighed.

“Are we hosting a flea market?”  Her eyes were hazy, but open, and her hair curled wildly about her head.  She was examining their wet clothes, which were hung from various branches in the hopes of drying. 

“It’s more like an open air laundry service,” he replied.  “Would you like some coffee?  It will help you warm up more.”

“Yes, please.  But if you wouldn’t mind bringing it to me.  I seem to have misplaced my undergarments.”

Mulder blushed, and hoped that the firelight hid his response.

“Yes, about that…”

“It’s alright, Mulder.   You did what you needed to do to save my life.  And you were a perfect gentleman.” 

After turning his back to allow Dana some privacy to don some dry clothing, they sat by the fire and sipped their coffee.   Looking skyward, she remarked, “The further west we go, the more stars appear in the sky.  Do you suppose by the time we reach the Pacific, night will be as bright as day?”

The fact that she spoke of their arrival as if they had a common destination did not escape his attention, but he did not correct her.  Instead, he offered up another of his myriad stories.

“About stars?”

“About stars.  The ancestors of the Cherokee had a corn mill that they used to pound corn for bread.  One morning, when they came to the stone where the corn was ground, they found that the corn meal had been eaten.  Looking around, they found the tracks of a dog in the mud.   The next night the ancestors hid and watched, and sure enough a dog came into the camp from the north and began to eat the corn meal.   They jumped up and chased after the dog, who fled in the direction from which he came, leaving crumbs of corn meal behind him.   That is why the field of stars which is known to Europeans as the Milky Way, the Cherokee call “where-the-dog-ran”.”

“That is a good story.  Tonight, the sky is awash with stolen corn meal.”


	22. Chapter 22

_June 7, 1839_

_Dear little brother,_

_I remember when I was seven, and you were still just a young lad in short pants, our parents had a terrible fight.  It was noteworthy, even to my young mind, precisely because it was so rare.  They were the sort of couple who seemed to always see eye to eye on things, and when they didn’t, our mother ceded her position willingly.  But on this day, there had been a tension to their exchanges over dinner, as though a summer storm was brewing, and we were sent to bed early with only perfunctory caresses from each of them._

_I did not develop my tendency towards curiosity in adulthood, and so I stood near the stairs of our small sleeping loft, certain that some great secret would be divulged if I listened carefully.  As it turned out, I needn’t have bothered.  What started out as a quiet conversation very soon escalated into a row, the topic of which I did not understand at the time._

_Father, as you know, tutored Mr. Spender’s young son Jeffrey.  The previous day, the topic of slavery and the rights of mankind had been raised, and our father had taken the opportunity to express his opinion on abolitionism to his young charge, who would one day inherit a massive tobacco plantation and over a thousand slaves whose labour made their master rich.  Jeffrey repeated some of father’s words to Mr. Spender, and you can well imagine the outcome.  Mr. Spender demanded a formal apology, and insisted that father teach a lesson to the whole household on the superiority of the white race._

_Father was going to refuse.  And mother was frantic.  I could hear her crying, trying to persuade him using any means possible. It wasn’t that she disagreed with father’s views, but she knew Mr. Spender’s retribution would be swift and terrible, were father to defy him. They carried on long into the night, far after I lost interest and lay down in bed.  At one point, I remember mother quoting the Bible: “pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall”.  Father laughed grimly, and said, “You are a wise woman, Greta, to quote the Proverbs of Solomon to a man such as I, but let me remind you how the verse begins.  ‘The highway of the upright is to depart from evil; He who watches his way preserves his life.’_

_I had no idea what they were talking about then, but I believe that I do now.  To do right as a man is to walk away from the immoral and the corrupt.  That is the only type of life worth living.  But to do so for no other reason than to fuel your pride, as though to hold yourself above the needs and the opinions of others?  That too is a path to ruin.  Like our father before us, I struggle with this dichotomy, and wish either one of our parents were alive to guide me._

_Sincerely,_

_Samuel_

*******

Soda Springs, Oregon Territory, July 25, 1845

Five days after their unexpected adventure in the Bear River, they arrived at Soda Springs.  There was no sign of the wagon train, but if either of them was disappointed, they did not let on.  Instead, wanting to surprise her, Mulder halted the wagon a ways back from the spring, then had Dana dismount.  Standing behind her, he gently covered her eyes with his hands.

“Mulder…” she laughed nervously.

“Trust me.” 

After walking fifty or so stumbling feet, he bade her to stop.  Without fanfare, he lifted his hands, her eyelashes tickling his palms as they fluttered.

“What in the world?”

“It’s a hot spring.  I thought after your cold bath the other day, you might appreciate a warm one.”  She looked over her shoulder at him and smiled.

“You took a cold bath too,” she reminded him without thinking.  He cast his eyes downward, looking surprisingly shy for a grown man.

“That is…” she started to explain, before he interrupted.  “As long as you promise not to peek.”  She turned pink as well, then nodded.

The spring wasn’t particularly large; just a bubbling pond that flowed into a small creek that then meandered through a verdant dale before joining the river they had been following.  Small hillocks of tufted grass jutted into the deeper pools, and by silent agreement, they made their way to either side of the largest of these.  He lay a pair of fresh breeches near the shore, then, upon confirming he could not see her, stripped off his boots, suspenders, trousers and summer linen shirt, leaving on only the pair of breeches he’d been wearing since Fort Laramie.  Testing the temperature with his foot, he walked cautiously into the spring until the water reached his waist. 

The soda made the water effervescent, and it tingled pleasantly on his skin.  He stood very still, enjoying the sensation of hot water, hot sun, and warm breeze.  He could hear the leaves dancing, insects buzzing, the horses grazing contentedly nearby.  His senses told him the moment Dana entered the water, despite having deliberately turned to face the other direction.  He could imagine her small shell pink feet sinking into the silty bottom, the warm bubbles creeping up her pale calves under her chemise like a lover’s hand…

Shaking his head, he tried to clear his thoughts.  It was broad daylight and he was clothed in nothing more than wet cotton that clung to his body like cobwebs.  Now was not the time for an erotic daydream about a woman standing only a few yards away.  He grit his teeth as he heard the water lapping against her body.

“Oh!”

Before he could stop himself, he turned towards her.  She had obviously knelt in the water to wet her hair, and as he caught sight of her through the waving grasses, she was standing up, water streaming down her face and neck.   His pulse pounded and all extraneous noise seemed to cease.  He could swear he heard each droplet of water as it slid against her skin.  This was why there were mythical tales of naiads, luring incautious men into their underwater domain with their otherworldly beauty.

Her eyes flickered up to his face, enormous and startled, then down his bare torso, back to his face again.  His chest muscles flexed, as though she had actually touched them.  No amount of good sense could convince him to cease looking at her.

Finally, she broke their interlocked gaze and turned halfway away, tucking her long Melusine hair behind her ear with a tremulous hand.   He felt an elastic snap in the tension between them, and turned away as well.

He needed to deliver this woman to the relative safety of Fort Hall and the wagon train, before he did something with far-reaching consequences.


	23. Chapter 23

** The Independence Examiner, Glimpses of History **

**To give an idea of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s size and influence in the exploration and settlement of North America, consider that at its height, it controlled over three million square miles of territory and employed nearly two thousand people, not including the many hundreds of independent trappers of both European and Native American descent who traded with the British-controlled company.  Started in 1670 on the shores of its namesake ice-bound inlet off the Artic Ocean, its traders utilized the vast watersheds of the interior of the continent, as well as networks of aboriginal villages, to fan out across the rugged and hostile land.  Any colonization was purely coincidental.  Their interests were simple and two-fold: acquire as many fur pelts as possible; and prevent the rival European nation of France from establishing territorial control or relationships that would allow them to do the same.**

**The French approach to denuding the newly discovered continent of its natural wealth differed from that of Britain.  France sent independent trappers and missionaries to cohabitate with the Native American population, where they lived year-round, implanting their language and occasionally their religion, and sometimes even marrying into the local tribe.  This explains the large number of French place names in the United States: from Macon, Georgia to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; the Platte River to the Teton Ranges.  Even after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 transferred bragging rights and nominal control of the entire Missouri and Mississippi watersheds to the United States, French remained the language of trade in the region for decades.**

**The British, by contrast, utilized a system of interconnected forts and company employees to act as their toeholds across the immense wilderness.  Rather than sending their traders to the Native villages, Native and independent trappers made their way to these established trading forts with their annual haul of pelts, which were then transferred to York Factory via express overland brigades, and loaded onto ice-locked ships in Hudson’s Bay, which in turn left to cross the Atlantic during the brief summer thaw.  This massive network of over four hundred trading posts, stretching from the Arctic to the Pacific to the Great Lakes Basin to the Atlantic Coast, was subdivided into immense districts governed by individuals appointed by the company leadership as chief factor.**

**The largest of these districts, the Columbia, stretched from the continental divide of the Rocky Mountains, west to the Pacific coast, from the fifty-fourth parallel of latitude abutting Russia’s territory of Alaska, to the forty-second parallel border with Mexico, mirroring what is now the Oregon-California state border.  Due to the tremendous distance that separated Fort Vancouver, the chief fort of the Columbia District established in 1824, from Hudson’s Bay, much of the inbound transportation of provisions and outbound transportation of furs was done by sea.  In the early nineteenth century, the upstart nation of the United States and the over-extended colonial power of Great Britain reached an uneasy stalemate about territorial control of this massive region, which was known locally as Oregon Country.  It was sparsely populated by westward-moving American pioneers and the benign commercial dictatorship of the British company employees scattered across a number of forts, some of which were closed due to their unprofitability.  By mid-century, growing conflicts between Mexico and the United States, and declining profits from fur trading, meant that the balance of power between the Hudson’s Bay Company and the United States government was about to shift.**

*****

Fort Hall, Oregon Territory, August 1, 1845

They arrived at the Hudson’s Bay Company outpost of Fort Hall in the lush Snake River valley by midmorning.  The fort was a large quadrangle, surrounded by wooden palisades and adobe walls.  Inside the gate was a flurry of activity, as over a hundred settlers milled about, exchanging information with the small local population of company men and itinerant fur traders, making repairs to equipment and reprovisioning.  They had finally caught up to the wagon train.

Mulder looked at Dana as they moved forward into the yard and were recognized by some of their former trailmates.  She made brief eye contact, then glanced away.  It was for the best, he told himself.  She had family waiting for her in Fort Vancouver, a life of relative comfort and security.  He had nothing but a worn diary, questions, and a longing to find peace. She was not responsible for filling in the parts of him that were missing. 

He dismounted and gestured towards the main building, leaving her to unhitch the wagon and care for the horses.  And answer the many difficult questions people would have about their journey, and the absence of her sister.  She was slightly put off by his sudden, silent departure, but attributed it to his desire to get word of his brother, and the strangeness of being suddenly flung from total isolation back into a world of bustle and noise.  They had been each other’s only company for so long, they had developed a near-symbiotic rapport that bypassed the need for much idle talk.

A short while later, Dana watched him leave the company office and stand stock still in the yard, as though reeling from a great shock.  He looked toward her wearing the expression of a man who had taken a cautious step, only to find himself plummeting downhill.  She lifted her skirts above the muck and hastened to him.

“What?  What is it, Mulder?  Is it your brother?”

He shook his head mutely.

“Please, Mulder.  You’re scaring me.”

“I was just speaking with the Hudson’s Bay Company factor.  Word reached him just last week.  About your uncle …” he petered off, looking queasy.

“Is … is he unwell?  Has something happened to him?”

“His health is fine, as far as I know.  The report that the factor received was in regard to… his position in Fort Vancouver.  Apparently, George Simpson, the Company’s governor, has relieved him of his duties as factor of the Columbia District.  He’s been ordered to report to Fort Victoria, much farther north along the coast.  It’s a primitive settlement, but Simpson believes the British will cede the southern Oregon Territory to the United States, and so the Company must move their operations northward beyond the forty-ninth parallel.”

She listened in confusion and growing horror.  She had come all this way; and now, to find out that there would be no-one waiting for her at her destination.  There was not enough time for the return journey east before winter set in.  She was a destitute, sponsorless maiden two thousand miles from the nearest source of assistance for a woman in her position.  The broad field of her prospects narrowed sharply to two equally abhorrent options: she could sell her body for sustenance; or she could marry the first likely pioneer in want of a wife, which amounted to much of the same thing.

She sank slowly to her knees as shock set in.  Mulder eased her away from the foul roadway and onto the wooden sidewalk, then sat beside her, gentling her hands that tossed in her lap like wounded doves.  She did not weep. She simply stared blindly across the yard and tried to imagine her fate.  Mulder, bless him, said not one word.  After several minutes of waiting for a more violent reaction to arrive, he reached into the saddlebag that was still slung over his shoulder and withdrew a tin canteen, which he unstopped and handed to her.  Making brief eye contact, she tipped her head back and took a large drought.  The liquor burned her throat so that her eyes finally watered, but the warmth it brought to her insides revived her and reminded her that she was still alive. 

She handed him back the canteen and he stowed it without taking a swig himself.  She’d noticed previously that he was not much of a drinker, which explained why he still had a half canteen of decent whiskey when they were a month’s heavy riding away from the nearest still.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.  You looked like you needed it.”

“I mean, thank you for telling me the truth.  You could have just as easily left me here with the wagon train, and allowed me to find out when I arrived at Fort Vancouver.”

“No, I couldn’t.”  Although he wondered if this alternative was preferable.  He had seen her mentally reach the same hopeless conclusions that he had upon speaking with the factor.

She smiled at him sadly.  He was a decent man, an interesting companion, and a ravaged soul.  She would miss him terribly, though she had no formal words for telling him that.

“And thank you for seeing me this far.  I wish that there was some way for me to repay you, but I shall be needing every last one of my possessions, if I am to forge a path forward.”

He shook his head, declining any notion reimbursement as he had done from the beginning.

“What will you do?”

She looked down to her hands, then back into his familiar face, and he was humbled by the determined gleam in her blue-grey eyes.  “I have not the least idea, but I imagine if I ponder long enough, something will come to me.”

“Well, I have arranged for a room for you in the company lodgings.  You may ponder there.  It is best, however, that you emphasize your British ancestry, as the Company is still not inclined to encourage American migrants in the disputed territory, even beautiful ones.”  He blushed after delivering his compliment, which she found ten times more affecting than if he hadn’t.

“Mulder, I cannot afford to stay in company lodgings.  I can ponder just as well in the wagon, as I have done for all these miles.”

He was tempted to ask the subject of her prior ruminations, but contented himself instead with “Never mind about the cost.  It may be infested with fleas, and our housemates may snore more loudly than Kobi, but you and I are in need of a good night’s sleep in a proper bed.”  She raised her eyebrow, and he stuttered quickly to explain, “A bed each, I should say.  Beds.  In separate rooms.” 

He was making an utter fool of himself, and he knew it.  And then, without warning, she burst out laughing at him.  His heart surged beneath his ribs, and he allowed the shy embers of an idea to form.


	24. Chapter 24

_July 12, 1839_

_Dear little brother,_

_I met a man from Virginia today whom we both know from our youth: Mr. Sean Pendrell.  Between us brothers, I had always found him an insipid, obsequious young man, but it would appear these qualities have not hindered his prospects.  He arrived in town with great pomp and circumstance, on his way north to St. Louis on the paddle wheeler to visit certain business interests he holds there, although their exact nature was never made clear to me._

_He was accompanied by a woman.  I believe you know her as well: Miss Diana Fowley.  She is the type of young woman I can imagine catching your eye, now that you are old enough to entertain such thoughts.  Regal and aloof; beautiful and laced with a certain menace.  She made me think of a spirited purebred horse, who you would try to master, only to be left bruised and broken in the dust of the corral.  To belabour a metaphor._

_In any event, I bore their combined personalities willingly over dinner, because they had news of you.  Mr. Pendrell told me about how Mr. Spender, shortly after mother’s death, sent you to Alexandria to apprentice as a cartwright.  I was completely taken aback, I must avow.  I would have thought that, despite his multitude of flaws, Mr. Spender’s affection for our mother would mean that he would have sheltered you longer, or found a more esteemed trade for you to practice.  Of the two of us, you were the better scholar, and I always imagined you as a teacher, or a tutor like our father.  To now find that you have been alone in the world, all these years that I have been away, toiling just to survive… I can hardly think of it without being filled with self-loathing.  I took down the name of your master, so that I might contact you there, should I manage to find words to convey my remorse._

_After dinner, at which Mr. Pendrell consumed a great deal of port wine and became quite obnoxious and boastful, I was eager to retire back to my rooming house and consider this new information about your whereabouts, but Miss Fowley contrived a means for us to be alone together for a moment.  She said she had a message for you, which I will not bother to repeat.  Suffice it to say, little brother, that when a horse unseats you, you should generally dust yourself off and prepare to get back on again.  But in this case, may I recommend that you find a less wanton, mean-spirited companion._

_Yours in solidarity,_

_Samuel_

*****

 Fort Hall, Oregon Territory, August 1, 1845

Their lodgings in the company barracks were about as luxurious as Mulder expected them to be.  After a simple meal, they each retired; he to a bunkhouse he would share with other men from the wagon train willing to pay to sleep indoors for a change, and she to an empty storeroom that had been hastily converted into a private room.  The mattress was filled with musty straw and there was barely enough oil in the lantern to see by, but there was a basin, a pitcher of cool clear water, and, greatest of miracles, a small bar of lye soap.  She stripped down to her underthings and splashed herself liberally with the water, then spent a great deal of time rubbing the soap over her exposed skin.

As she bathed, she thought of her predicament.   Surely, in the month of August, there must be someone heading back towards the East.   Even if she only made it as far as Fort Laramie, she could wait out the winter there before returning to Missouri in the spring.  Perhaps she could hire herself out as a laundry woman or even a teacher, in order to earn her keep.  She tried desperately to remember if there were any children at the fort.   She would make inquiries in the morning.

Her mind turned to Mulder, and she grew solemn.  No matter what avenue she chose, it would mean saying goodbye to him, and she found the idea viscerally painful.  What had begun as a relationship borne of necessity had come to represent one of the most meaningful connections of her young life.  He was complex, frustrating, honourable and irreverent, and in the quiet of the sooty night, she could admit that she had fallen in love with him.  But fairy tales belonged back in her childhood bed, safe under the eaves and surrounded by the warm smells of home.  Here, in the expanses beyond even the longest grasp of civilization, there was no room for romanticism.  And even if she were to indulge an ember of hope that their futures could be in some way entwined, he had made it clear that his sole pursuit was to find his brother; a Sisyphean quest that left no room for hearth or comfort. 

A light tap against her door startled her out of her reverie.  Wearing only her chemise, she grabbed the sheet from her primitive bed and draped it over her shoulders.  Beyond the cautiously opened door, Mulder stood in the hallway, looking uncertain.  She opened the door wider and he quickly entered.  They would certainly be the topic of gossip around the fort tomorrow, but then again, they arrived in a single wagon after spending nearly three months on the trail alone together.   Any damage to her reputation had long since been done.

“There’s a man, a French trapper named Michaud,” he began, speaking rapidly, as though trying to expel the bad taste of the words.  “He’s heading back to Fort Bridger, on his way to the Wasatch Range in the land of the Utes, to set his traps for the winter.   I’ve spoken with him, and he seems like a good man.  You could take my rifle, and …” he trailed off, realizing that she was already shaking her head.

“Thank you, Mulder.  I appreciate the suggestion.  But I’d be better off staying here at Fort Hall until the spring.  I’m not heading off into the wilderness with a strange man, all alone.”

He smiled ruefully.  “Present company excepted?”

“Present company always excepted.”  She placed her hand upon his bare forearm, and marvelled at the currents of feeling that seemed to surround them, like the invisible spheres of heaven, whenever they touched.

“There is … that is, I did have another idea.”  Any inquiry halted behind her lips when he took the hand that rested on his arm, and clasped it.  Her eyes went wide and locked onto the landscape hues of his own.

“You could, god, I can’t believe I’m asking you this, but you could come with me to California.” He blurted it out as one long word, and clung to her hand so tightly the bones complained.

She waited for further guidance - a declaration of interest, a proposal – but none was forthcoming.  He simply looked like a man awaiting deliverance from a jury of one.

“In what capacity would I accompany you to California, Mulder?”

He knew what she was asking, but he had no answer to give her.  One moment, he was trying to help her return to the East, and the next he was asking her to continue onwards with him.  If she was confused, he was doubly so.  So he gave her the only answer that he was certain was true.

“In your capacity as the only person who would make that journey, or any journey, tolerable to me.  As my one in seventeen million.”


	25. Chapter 25

The next morning, Mulder arranged for the sale of her wagon to another member of the Oregon-bound wagon train in exchange for some extra provisions, a riding saddle, and a pack harness for Tsiya.  Dana would ride Awanika, and they would travel as lightly as they could, as speed was of the essence.  It was only early August, but they had nearly as many miles left to their final destination at Sutter’s Fort as they had behind them, and those miles passed through a series of mountain ranges where the first snows fell in September, and harsh, alkali deserts, where the scorching temperatures dictated travel at night.  They would be relying on Mulder’s rifle and her newfound foraging skills for the majority of their food, and on the deer hide water-skins where fresh water wasn’t available.

Most of their preparations took place in silence, as they each adjusted to the new idea of their voluntary partnership.  After Dana accepted Mulder’s proposition the night before, she had expected him to kiss her.  Or, at the very least, to clarify what he intended by inviting her.  Were they fiancés?  Entering into one of the ‘country marriages’ he had previously described to her?  Or was she merely an enjoyable trail companion whose dire circumstances had prodded him to generosity?  The lack of precision would normally have caused her agitation, but there were too many other, pressing matters at hand to spare it much thought.  So it sat, like a face-down playing card whose character could completely alter the outcome of her destiny.  At the very least, the hundreds of solitary miles ahead of them would afford plenty of opportunity to tease an answer out of him, if she could find the courage to ask the right questions.

They made plans to depart in two days.  This was a new turn of events.  Instead of forging ahead and then expecting her to follow, Mulder now consulted her about major decisions.  Should they buy a heavy canvas tent, or trust in the likelihood of little rain?  Were the horses to be shod?  If they overtook a westward bound wagon, would they slow their pace to stay with a group, or persevere onwards alone?  Given his greater experience as a wayfarer and explorer, she found these inquiries bewildering, but flattering as well.  Whatever her new status in his life, he was making efforts to show that it was as a partner, not a burden.

The day before their departure, the wagon train bound for Fort Vancouver struck out, and they said goodbye to their former travelling companions, who seemed like foggy memories from a dream of another life.  She noticed the vindicated glances of more than a few women, who no doubt felt that their concerns for her virtue had been well-founded.  If the men were perhaps a little enthusiastic in wishing Mulder good luck on their passage, he showed no reaction, except maybe, just maybe, a glimmer of masculine pride.

That night, they were alone in the Company barracks.  After supper, Mulder made his excuses and went to the stable to make certain everything was in order for their early morning set-off.  She lay in her bed, tossing and turning, wasting her last night of comfortable sleep in God knew how long.   It occurred to her that she was listening for the sound of his footsteps outside her door, and she grew frustrated with herself when she couldn’t decide if it was anticipation or dread that made her heart beat faster.  Finally, she fell into a fitful half-doze, and dreamt she heard his footfalls approach, pause outside her door for a long moment, then continue on to the bunkroom.

***

** The Independence Examiner, Glimpses of History **

**When circumstance or upheaval force the normal bonds of society to bend, new opportunities for women arise between the gaps.  This was the case during the Industrial Revolution, the World Wars, and so it was on the Oregon Trail as well.  While mothers and wives were burdened with the challenge of maintaining domestic routines on the trail, they could also take on new responsibilities and roles.  Many drove a wagon.  Some rode astride a horse for the first time.  Foraging and herbal medicine were vital skills passed from one group of pioneer women to another.   And when catastrophes dictated, certain women took over as head of their household, seeing their families to the relative safety of their destination.**

**Single women were uncommon, and rarely stayed single for long, due to the high proportion of unmarried men in the West.  But for an important minority, the frontier opened up a hitherto unimaginable world of possibility.  They could rise to the heights of their potential without societal backlash.  The taste of independence, once experienced, was not soon forgotten, and the history of the West is riddled with stories of savvy women who navigated the shoals of self-determination long before the suffragist movement took hold in the East.**


	26. Chapter 26

Register Rock, Oregon Territory, August 3, 1845

It was a pleasant day’s ride down the Snake River Valley.  After supper, while the horses grazed and Dana cleaned their tin dishes in the fast-flowing stream, Mulder used the last of the waning sunlight to walk slowly around the basalt boulders that lay scattered about.  On many of the rocks, emigrants had carved their names and the date they passed by.  It had been this way, across the empty stretches of the country – anywhere that people could leave a trace of their passing, they did.   And at each such location, he searched for a sign of his brother.  Samuel, who delighted in carving his initials into every school desk he had ever occupied, despite their mother’s outrage, would have loved the idea of leaving his name to posterity on these natural archives.  The fact that he’d yet to find the words Samuel Mulder anywhere amongst the hundreds, maybe thousands, of names, told Mulder more than he cared to admit about the prospect of finding Samuel in California.

****

_August 29, 1839_

_Dear little brother,_

_I was thinking today about the hubris of men; that we think that we can own another person, and dictate what they should not only do with their body, but with their soul and their future._

_Missouri is a slave state, like Virginia.  Well, not entirely like Virginia, in that the institution of slavery is not knit into the fabric of society to the same degree.  Here on the frontier, the large majority of citizens own no slaves at all, and farms are mostly worked by paid labourers, some of them coloured.  The exception are the urban elite, who like to put on airs of Southern gentility by importing slaves as staff for their homes._

_Today, I crossed paths with a young Black woman named Cora.  She was purchasing food at the general store at the same time as I was there, and when it became apparent that she was greatly overburdened by the sacks of cornmeal and baking flour that she had purchased, I offered to help her carry them.  She wore the nervous, apprehensive air of all slaves when they are shown basic decency: they expect a trap, or an unspoken price that will be too high to pay.  I tried to reassure her with my demeanour that I meant only to assist her as any gentleman would assist a lady, and we struck up a hesitant conversation as we made our way across town.  She had been born in Georgia, and was sold at the age of twelve to a businessman who relocated to Missouri soon afterwards.  In a strange twist of fate, her master was none other than Lilburn Boggs, our governor and the nemesis of the Mormons._

_I was going to ask you if you could possibly imagine what it would feel like to be expelled from your family home and sent to work for a stranger at such a young age, but of course, you do.  While an apprenticeship is not slavery, it must have felt inescapable to you; for where else could you have gone at thirteen, with no living family nearby left to protect you?_

_I’m sorry, Fox.  I’m sorry that I left you behind, and I’m sorry that Spender failed to meet even the very low expectations that I had of his behaviour towards you.  I feel the burden of my guilt very keenly, but of course, that is of no use to you.  If I may offer you some advice from the lessons I have learned since I left Virginia: try to minimize the number of people who are dependent on you for their well-being, but once one such person exists, do everything in your power to never let them down.  If you follow this maxim, you will be twice the man I am._

_With affection,_

_Samuel_

******

The stars were spilled across the firmament, grains of sand cast by the careless hand of God.  He imagined the cinnamon freckles scattered over the parchment of her skin contained similar constellations.  They lay, side by side, on the swell of a gentle knoll, like effigies of a royal couple.

“Do you think Samuel is there in the heavens, Dana?  Transformed into a star, as the legend says.”

Silence stretched between them as she considered her answer.  He certainly didn’t need her strict rationalism on this topic.  Instead of answering directly, she said, “Do you know what a star is, Mulder?”

“It is a sun, similar to our own, but further away.  And because we can only perceive the heavens as a flat surface, stars that appear grouped together may in fact be separated by immense space.  Maybe the six lost brothers aren’t together in the heavens at all, although it gives me comfort to imagine them so.”

“We look to the light of the stars as though it is destined for us alone, travelling across great distances just to reach our eye.  And if we are not here to see it, does it not feel wasted?” she continued.

“Yes, I suppose that’s true, although I’d never thought of it that way.”

“But the marvelous thing about starlight, Mulder, is that it shines in all directions.  So even if we were not here to admire its brilliance, it would continue to gleam across the universe, perhaps to illuminate other worlds, at other times.”

He was looking at her now, his lambent, peculiar eyes alert and intense.

“Try to remember that, Mulder.  All light has infinite sides.  Even if you or I can no longer see a star’s light, it does not mean it burns any less brightly elsewhere.  It is my belief that it is to those places that souls go, when they are no longer here with us on Earth.  It’s where I imagine Missy and our mother, when I look up to the sky.   And if Samuel is no longer here on Earth, then he has gone to a second side of light too.”

A crooked finger turned her chin towards him, and there were tears in his lashes when she dared to look.  A tickle of breath, and their lips met for the first time.  A dancing buzz took residence in her chest as epochs passed in the seconds before he drew away.  Her eyelids fluttered open.  He smiled diffidently, then lay back down at her side.  Only this time, their hands were clasped.


	27. Chapter 27

Raft River Mountains, early August 1845

Their route forked southward away from the westbound Oregon Trail, which continued to follow the Snake River and eventually the Columbia River before arriving at the coast.  Almost immediately, the land grew arid, and instead of trees, the looming mountains were covered in bizarre rock formations.  At night they lay chilled in their respective bedrolls, as close to the fire as they dared, as the temperature plummeted and the wind sang plaintively in the canyons.

They made excellent pace, covering nearly thirty miles per day, compared to the fifteen or so miles they were able to travel with the wagon, even over flat trails.  Unaccustomed to riding for prolonged periods of time, Dana’s thighs and back ached, but she refused to complain or ask for more rest. 

After their conversation about starlight and resulting brief kiss, Mulder had lapsed back into near-silence.  She came to understand that she could not measure his behaviour by the precepts of normal society.  If he was courting her, he was doing it in his own, circumambulatory way.  Right now, the vigilant expression on his face told her he was concentrating on keeping them on the right path, alive and fed.  He consulted Samuel’s diary regularly, and when she caught a glimpse of the pages, she recognized Mulder’s erratic, loopy hand, interspersed with crude maps and pictograms representing, she assumed, important landmarks.  The diary that had once served as the guidebook for the quest to find his brother was now a palimpsest on which he’d taken down notes to find their own way.

“Where will our route take us next?”  It had been over an hour since they finished supper and disposed with even the basic pleasantries that entailed.  Since then, she had been watching the lengthening shadows as the sun eased behind the western mountain ranges.

He looked up from his book, brow furrowed in confusion, and she had the feeling he hadn’t been considering their itinerary at all.

“Tomorrow we’ll crest Granite Pass,” he gestured towards a rocky saddle, high between two icy peaks.  “But before we break camp, we need to collect as much firewood as Tsiya can carry without being over-burdened.  Until we reach Ogden’s River, wood will be scarce, and as you have experienced, the nights are quite cold.   Plus, I’m hoping to find some game to shoot, if you feel up to a little pioneer cuisine.”

She nodded, surprised at his sudden volubility.  He moved to sit beside her, and indicated the page he’d been studying earlier.

“See here?  Once we descend from the pass, we’ll be in a giant basin some hundred miles across.  There are springs, and the occasional patch of grass for the horses, but no trees.”  He was leaning towards her, his breath against her neck calling her nerves to life.  She tried to focus on the primitive drawings in the firelight, but he was so close, and so overwhelmingly male.

“Ummm,” she managed in response.

“Are you feeling alright?  You are so proficient at everything you do, I forget you aren’t accustomed to riding as I am.”

“I’m fine.  Sore.  But Awanika is a good horse.  She is so nimble, I hardly notice the terrain.  Quanah knew what he was doing when he picked her and Tsiya from the herd.”

“He did.  It seems a lifetime ago, doesn’t it?  You clearly thought I was insane, taking you to visit the Comanche to trade your silver dollars for horses.” He grinned at her, looking briefly like a little boy in the glancing light.

“I can’t believe you thought I would simply hand over my money to a stranger,” she retorted.

“What good would those silver dollars do you now?”

“If we were to happen upon a travelling cobbler, they could pay for better footwear.  My boots are not intended for a horsewoman.”  She grimaced as she kneaded the ball of one foot.

“If you extend your legs, perhaps I can be of assistance.”

Wondering at his intention, but trusting him, she uncurled and stretched her stockinged feet towards the fire.  Lifting them carefully, he placed each upon his thigh, causing her to pivot in his direction.  Slowly, he rolled her once white hose down her calves and off each foot.  She observed him, positively limp with anticipation.  Strong, calloused thumbs dug into the fleshy pads of her heel and toes, and she let out a whimper of pleasure.

“Do not think I don’t notice you, Dana, or have forgotten about you.  I have not.  And if ever I do, simply call for my attention, and you shall have it.”  He did not make eye contact during this speech, concentrating instead of smoothing his hands over the fragile bones of her ankles.

“How might I demand your attention, Mulder?” she whispered back.

“I cannot think of a strategy that would be unsuccessful, but touching me, and permitting me to touch you in return, is a particularly pleasant method.”


	28. Chapter 28

Humboldt (Ogden’s) River, August 9, 1845

As Mulder predicted, the passage across the Great Basin had been virtually devoid of vegetation.  He shot a mule deer near Granite Pass and she cooked up as many steaks as would not perish in the furnace-like daytime heat, even using a bit of flavouring from the pods of a nearby mesquite tree to mask the taste as the meat grew more putrid.  Mulder made exaggerated sounds of pleasure while gorging on deer steak the first night, but those ceased as the trip across the barren land progressed.

When they finally reached it, Ogden’s River was like a moving oasis in a dun and hostile desert.  During the days, the sun reflected off the bare rock, scorching everything in sight.  By mid-morning, Dana’s calico dress and cotton petticoats were soaked with sweat and clinging to her skin, which prickled already with heat rash.  Mulder didn’t fare much better, but at least he could roll up his sleeves and unbutton the neck of his shirt.

At lunch, they halted in the shade of a large boulder.  She was busy trying to find a position in which to sit that allowed air to travel up her voluminous skirts without appearing too unladylike.  It was all she could do to avoid tearing off every last, prickling item and wading naked into the cool, muddy water flowing at their feet.  Mulder was rummaging through one of Tsiya’s packs, but she paid him no mind until he stopped in front of her and presented a pair of his trousers and a clean shirt.  She raised an eyebrow questioningly.

“What are these for?  Please tell me you don’t want me to do your laundry!”

“They are for you.  To wear.”

“Mulder…” raising her eyes to him dubiously.

“Dana.  I’ve been watching you itch all morning.   Clearly you are miserable.   There is not another living soul for fifty miles.  Please, just put them on.”

“A lady doesn’t…” she began to protest.

“A lady doesn’t do a great many things that you’ve been obliged to do, for your safety and ultimately for your comfort.  I hardly see why you should be judged by the standards of a society we left behind a thousand miles ago.”

She considered his argument, and felt herself weakening.  She knew he was right, and yet donning a man’s clothing seemed somehow … perverse.

He must have sensed her decision as she made it.  He thrust the clothing towards her again, and gestured to the far side of the boulder against which they had eaten their meal.

The clothing was much too large, but she rolled the legs of the pants and left the bottom three buttons of the shirt undone, using the tails to form a knot that sat below her navel.  Neither her drawers nor her chemise fit beneath the men’s garments, and she had finally abandoned her corset in Fort Hall, so she was quite naked underneath.  She gave a brief thought to the fact that the most private parts of her body were touching the same material that had once hugged his own anatomy, but then realized that further reflection on that point would only lead to maddening distraction.

Stepping out from behind the rock, Mulder was nowhere to be seen.  The three horses were still tethered nearby, so she sat down to await his return.  A short while later, splashing from the river announced his arrival.  He had both water-skins braced over his shoulders, inflated with water.

“I thought we were following this river?”

“We are, for as far as it lasts.”  She pondered the wide stream which flowed in the direction they were travelling, then decided against further inquiry.

He draped the full skins over Tsiya’s withers and began preparations to leave, so she rose as well.

Turning finally towards her, his eyes made a long, lazy voyage from her feet to her shoulders.  The heat in that gaze made her previous predicament seem insubstantial, but she bore it in stillness.  When he had drank his fill, he met her look and something beneath her breastbone ignited.

Thumbing the inside of her wrist, where her pulse hammered, he opened his mouth to speak, hesitated, then finally pronounced hoarsely, “We’d best be going.”

****

** The Independence Examiner, Glimpses of History **

**It has been rightly observed that the crossing of North America on the California Trail was a fool’s errand.  After two thousand miles of drudgery and disease, malnutrition and broken spirits, the trail turned into the arid wasteland of the Great Basin, and finally ran straight into the scalar Sierra Nevada mountains, usually just as the first snows were about to fall and food was running out.  It was a classic example of ‘just when things are going bad, they’ll start to go worse’.**

**In 1845, there had been so few pioneers who had made it as far as these mountains that there were no established trails through them.  There were a number of options, all of them equally bad.  A group of fifty settlers known to posterity as the Stephens-Townsend-Murphy party were the first to use the Truckee River valley to ascend with their wagons into the mountains the previous year.  Halfway across, they abandoned their wagons to the care of an eighteen year old boy who spent a horrifying two months guarding them while the snow drifts piled up around him, before finally being rescued.**

**Near the top of the Truckee route, a large lake acted as a natural resting point, and then a steady hike over a low saddle ridge led to the headwaters of the Yuba River and a relatively easy descent into the benign river valleys of the central Californian heartland.  This route, in 1846, would prove to be the bane of another group of settlers whose name lives on in infamy: the Donner Party.**


	29. Chapter 29

Humboldt (Ogden’s) River, mid-August 1845

With every passing mile, the flow of the river dwindled, and the water became increasingly brackish, until the horses refused to drink it.  The river valley narrowed into a canyon, and they were forced to walk the horses down the watercourse, which at least had the benefit of keeping them cool.  And then, after another day of this slow progress, the river simply disappeared, soaking into the arid surface until no water remained.  They made camp in the afternoon by the last outcropping of rocks, while the horses grazed hungrily on a small patch of grass.

“According to the surveyor I spoke to at Fort Hall, it’s forty miles due west across the salt pan to the next source of water.  If we travel at night, we will be spared the heat, but we could become disoriented and lose our way.   I would rather brave the inferno.  We have plenty of water.  It should take two whole days to cross.”

“If we are heading due west and the sky remains clear, we can navigate using the stars, and spare ourselves the heat,” she suggested.

Mulder looked at her in confusion, so she explained.

“My father is a sea captain, Mulder.  He taught Missy and I basic astronomy.  If you locate the pole star, due west will always be immediately to your left.  If we set out at sundown tonight and make haste, we could cross the entire desert in one night.”

He shook his head in wonder.  “Dana Scully, you are always surprising me.  You are the best trail companion a man could ask for.”  She smiled with pleasure, before he saw fit to add, “And you look far better in my trousers than I do.  On our next voyage, you shall be our guide.”

***

_October 13, 1839_

_Dear little brother,_

_I fear I have made a terrible miscalculation.  I foolishly believed that if I wrote nothing but the truth, the truth would protect me.   But for those that profit from obscurity and misinformation, the truth is anathema, and they will weed it out like a noxious vine that threatens to strangle their harvest._

_I shall have to leave Independence, at least until the current threat dissipates.  Where will I go?  I cannot stomach the idea of returning to Virginia, like some recalcitrant pupil dismissed from school.  If ever I return, I want it to be as the master of my own destiny, so that you may be proud of me. No, I think I will head out across the frontier, in search of some great adventure that I might write about.  Once I determine where, I will find a way to leave word for you, so that you may find me, if needs must._

_I pray that our paths cross again, in this world or the next,_

_Samuel_

****

Forty Mile Desert, August 25, 1845

The air shimmered above the salt pan as the day’s last light gave way to dusk.  Mulder carefully emptied water from one of the skins into their cooking pot, then held it aloft for each of their horses to drink their fill.  Once the horses were fully refreshed, he dumped the remaining whiskey from his canteen onto the parched ground and filled that with water as well, looping it over his chest.  Only then did he offer the skin to Dana, and finally drink from it himself.  When this was done, they had only a half-skin of water, plus the small canteen.  He checked their tack carefully, re-balancing the loads until they were perfectly equal on both sides.  They mounted in silence.

“Ready?”

She dipped her head, and they set off at a brisk trot.

They were fortunate, as the moon was waxing full, and its gibbous light made it less likely for the horses to stumble on the uneven ground.  It was an eerie scene, however; stark and unearthly, lit blue-silver as though from within, with no shadows to give depth to the landscape.   The wind descended swiftly over the high mountains into the cooling valley, and blew the coarse alkali deposits about in tiny, hissing tempests.  In the middle distance, she made out strange shapes that she originally took to be the skeleton trunks of dead trees.  After many hours, when the moon rose higher, she realized they were abandoned wagons, surrounded by the carcasses of dead livestock.   Low mounds nearby looked suspiciously like hastily dug graves.

“Mulder, this place is full of ghosts.”  Only a whisper seemed appropriate.

They paused briefly for a sip of water in the bottomless hours of the night.  Her limbs throbbed in agony, and she didn’t dare alight from Awanika’s back, for fear of not being able to mount again.  Mulder started to speak, his somehow melodious monotone warming the chill in the air around them.

“When Samuel first left Virginia, I would imagine him in the midst of a fantastic adventure, like a character in The Last of the Mohicans or Waverly.  He was my older brother, and I idolized him.  I thought … if I could find him again, knit our futures together after they had been ripped apart, I would return to a mythical state of grace from an idyllic childhood that never existed.  The copy of The Examiner arrived from Independence, with his name on the byline, and I wanted to believe he was finally calling me to join him.  Truth be told, I don’t even know that it was Samuel who sent that newspaper, or whether he purposefully left his diary behind in his rooming house for me to find.  Maybe someone was telling me that he picked a fight with the wrong man, and that he was in danger.  Maybe he left his diary behind because that man waylaid and killed him.  I’ll probably never know.   These past years, searching high and low for him in any place he happened to mention in his diary - I’ve come to realize that all I’ve been doing is chasing after a delusion.  A memory from childhood made manifest in my imagination.”

“You were looking for closure, Mulder.  That’s a perfectly human reaction to the grief you must have felt as a child.”

“Yes, I suppose in a way I was.  But I was also making excuses for not living my own life.  I was willing to put my own desire for comfort aside in order to try to find him; coming up with increasingly outlandish ideas as to why he could not be found.  When the truth is that if he wanted us to be together, he could always have come to find me, but he never did.   And maybe he never did because he was already dead.  Or maybe he never did because pursuing his dreams was more important to him than pleasing his little brother.  But either way, I can’t keep renouncing my own story in the pursuit of an end to Samuel’s.   He wouldn’t have wanted it that way.  I don’t deserve it.  And now that you’re here with me, you don’t deserve it either.  So let us continue on to California, and leave Samuel’s ghost right here, where it will have ample company.”

She nudged Awanika towards Kobi’s side, and reached across to clasp his hand, which was chilled.  The starlight shining in his eyes made them burn pale grey.  She brushed her lips across his knuckles in her first, hesitant romantic overture.

“You are a good man, Fox Mulder.  I did not know, when we set out together, what tribulations lay before us.  But even knowing what I know now, I would not hesitate to follow you again.”

Reaching up carefully, she kissed first his forehead, then his cracked lips.  A wispy sound, half sigh, half sob, escaped from him before she drifted away.

“Come, let us leave our ghosts,” she urged.   And with that, they pushed the tired horses forward. 

It was just before daybreak when first Kobi, then the other two horses, perked up their ears and broke into a canter.  They had heard the first faint trickle of water.  Behind them, seraphic and smiling, Melissa Scully raised her hand in farewell.


	30. Chapter 30

Sierra Nevada Mountains, early September 1845

For the next week, they made easy progress along the Truckee River, resting themselves and the horses for the last monumental effort – crossing the Sierra Nevada mountain ranges that stood between their present location and the warm lands of California.

As was their wont, they didn’t speak much of emotional matters, but Mulder seemed lighter, almost carefree, after their experience in the desert.  She noticed he touched her more frequently, as well, resting his hand on her shoulder, or in the small of her back, as they went about the now-routine tasks that made up a day on the trail.  She half-expected him to kiss her again, but each night, as the fire burned down, he stretched out on his bedroll a short distance away with a polite “Goodnight, Dana.” and she did not hear from him again until sunrise, when the noise of him leaving camp usually woke her before the birdsong.  She could not decide if his restraint pleased or angered her.

Eventually, they began the steady climb up the steep eastern slopes via a faint trail that followed a boulder-ridden stream.  After the sparse vegetation of the last several weeks, the enormous pine trees and dense understory were a visual splendour of saturated green.  The sky was obliterated by heavy grey clouds that leaned against the mountainsides.  The higher they rode, the colder it grew, and then all at once, it was snowing.  Great downy flakes that descended leisurely to cling to all that they touched.  They reined in the horses and looked at each other, delighted smiles and damp lashes.

“Maybe we should have bought the tent after all,” she suggested, although she didn’t seem bothered in the least at the prospect of a night spent sheltering under the lee of some rocky outcrop with him.

“Once we crest the range, it will be warmer, you’ll see.”

And he was right.  Passing a large lake, they climbed over the saddle of another ridge, and suddenly everywhere was downhill.  The sun was descending below the clouds, but instead of setting behind something, it sunk indolently towards the horizon in an explosion of gold.  Even at their altitude, they could feel the kiss of its rays on their skin, the promise of heat.

They found a treeless valley in which to camp before making the final descent into the floodplain below, where Sutter’s Fort and their future lay.  Before Mulder set about gathering the plentiful wood for a fire, she grasped him by the hand and drew him to her, embracing his much taller form.  They stood that way for several minutes, wondering at the possibilities before them.

“Tell me a story, Mulder,” she breathed into chest, and he chuckled at this now-familiar request.

“According to the Teton, Ikto was the first person in this world and the creator of all things. He was cunning and came up with names for all the animals and people.  But sometimes his creations were able to trick him. One day Ikto was hungry, so he caught a rabbit. He was about to roast him. 

Rabbit said, “Do not eat me, Ikto, I will teach you great magic.”

Ikto said, “You can teach me nothing. I have created all things.”

“But I will show you something new,” said Rabbit. Curious, Ikto relented.

Rabbit explained to Ikto, “Elder brother, if you wish snow to fall, take a handful of hair such as this,”—and he pulled out some of his rabbit fur—“and make it fly in all directions; there will be a blizzard.”

With his fur, Rabbit made a deep snow in this way, even though it was summertime.

Ikto tried to copy Rabbit, but he could not.  It was only rabbit fur that created the magic of snow.  In the meantime, Rabbit escaped.  In the Native American worldview, even gods can be outwitted by their creations.”

“Do you think we have outwitted God, by making it this far together?” she asked, once his story was done.

“I think it would be unwise to bet against us.”


	31. Chapter 31

Yuba River Headwaters, Sierra Nevada Mountains, September 10, 1845

The universe expanded above his head in pinpoint waves of light.  It was mid-September, and the air was sharp and fresh, like the first bite of a tart apple.  He folded his hands beneath his head and pondered the immensity of it all, and all the choices that led to this moment.  Philosophy had a soporific effect on him.

The meadow grass rustled behind him, and then she was standing in view, a stark white monument of loveliness framed against the night sky.  The moonlight shone behind her, casting her body’s shadow in clear outline through her chemise.  His throat parched dry, and he tried in vain to moisten his lips.   She knelt beside his hip and ran the pad of her thumb where his tongue had just been.

“I thought,” she whispered, “that I would wait for you to come to me.  But then I realized, I could not bear so much waiting.”

He shivered, but not from cold, and cupped her upper arm, gently easing her down to lay against his side.  Her head upon his shoulder was the sort of weight that made a man free.  Her unbound hair flowed over his fingers like ripples in a stream.

“I hesitated because … I did not want you to feel any obligation to accept.”

“The magnitude of my desire is greater than any obligation I could feel.”  The words washed through his body on a bracing wave of want, leaving him chilled and humbled.

“My god, Dana… I cannot express how little you owe me, and how great my debt is in return.  Were it not for you, I don’t know if I would have been strong enough to…”

“Shhh…”  She covered his mouth with two fingers, then replaced them with her lips.  A swell of prickly heat washed outwards now from where they made contact and he closed his eyes, to better absorb the sensation.  Her embrace was utterly foreign, it had been so long since another human had touched him this way.  He felt his body stirring, even from this simple kiss.

He knew she was not a prude, but he also assumed she was innocent.  She probably had no idea how aroused he was quickly becoming, as her small teeth and quick tongue wrecked havoc with his senses.  He tried to push her gently away, only to have her moan and drape her thigh over him, pulling their bodies into electric contact from head to knees.

“Christ, Dana.  I don’t …”  His mind was addled.  What did he mean to say?  The impulse to hold and squeeze and conquer and subsume was nearly overwhelming, moving his limbs without his volition.

She slid her thigh higher, until it rested directly over the pulsing heat in his groin.  All external input from outside the clasp of their bodies ceased.

“You don’t?  It feels very much like you do.”

He groaned, a sound like mountains shifting inside his chest, and let go of any last vestige of civility.  Hands grappled with the hem of her shift, sliding over milk-cool thighs until they reached her bare bottom.  The fact that she wasn’t wearing drawers was a final indication that she understood the inevitable outcome of her actions.  His fingers clenched the pillows of soft flesh as that realization dawned, and before he could break their kiss to apologize, she moaned and her hips thrust against him in a tiny spasm.  God lord, she was sweet.  This was… this was madness.  How was he to ever look at her again, and not imagine this moment?

Kneeling quickly, she raised her chemise over her head and shook out her hair.  Tucked away in an inside pocket of his saddlebag, he had a small collection of pornographic postcards.  Women in various states of undress, posing seductively.  As a single man with natural urges, they had long been welcome company during his solitary nights.  But nothing could have prepared him for the naked perfection before him.  She was smooth and pale as sculpted marble, but burned with a heat that filled the air between them.  Her breasts were high and firm, and the convexity of her hips met the concavity of her waist with mathematical precision that would make Pythagoras weep.  He knew her hair was dark auburn, but by the soft light of nighttime the thatch above the joining of her legs glowed dark as cinders.  She shone like a celestial daguerreotype, and she was offering herself to him.

His awestruck scrutiny must have lasted too long, as she began to blush and bent a futile arm to cover herself.

“No.  Come here.” He beckoned with an outstretched hand and she folded against him, her breath tickling his neck.

“You are so beautiful.  There is nothing in the world more perfect to me than you.  Do not doubt that.  Ever.”

“I have surprised myself.  One would think, by the way I am acting, that I have some experience with men.  I assure you, I have never …”

“Hush.  Again, you are perfect.  And while I am hardly a veteran in this regard myself, what worldliness I have, I will gladly teach you.  Would you like that, Dana?”

She nodded against his chest, and he took a steadying breath.  It would not do for the teacher to rush ahead of his pupil’s ability.  Then again, in all matters she had proven herself to be a very quick study.

“May I remove my shirt?” he asked tentatively, and when she nodded again, he loosed a few buttons, then raised up enough to pull it over his head.  She watched him lower to the ground, eyes caressing the flex and pull of his stomach muscles, and then touched her tiny hand to his breast, just above where his heart pounded like a war drum.  He placed his hand over hers, and encouraged her to rub.  The sparse hair on his chest crinkled, causing him to shudder.  Letting go her hand, which continued its motion, he carefully cupped her left breast, holding its tender weight in his palm like precious wine.  Eyes locked, he teased her nipple with the edge of his thumbnail and exulted when she moaned, high and breathy.  She mirrored his action, and sparks flit across his sensitive skin.  Roll, bump, pinch, squeeze.  Every action was reflected back upon him until he felt caught in a whirlpool of pleasure from which the only escape out was through.  Their mouths crashed together again, all tentativeness abandoned.  They traded sides, her right breast for his left and experienced the sensations anew.  Finally, they drew apart, gasping.

“It is as though my body is starving, and I want to be both sated and hungry forever,” she said with no little wonder.

“Yes,” he breathed.  Her nipple, swollen and blood-rust, was inches from his mouth, and impulse led him to latch on.  She cried out and he hesitated, but her hand in his hair guided him even closer.

“Ahhh!”  He cast his eyes upwards as he suckled and saw her open mouth, blue eyes fluttering in ecstasy.  This was the most vivid dream about her he had ever experienced, and he was certain to wake up shortly, alone and panting, a damp chill spreading across the front of his breeches.

The hand that was not holding herself perched above his mouth, slid down his lean torso, tickling his navel and the tender skin below, making his muscles quiver.  It hesitated at the waist of his breeches, so he clasped it with his own and pushed it lower, until she was cupping him through the coarse cotton.  He released her nipple again, fighting for coherence.

“Dana, god.  That feels so good.  Move your hand up and down slowly.  Stroke me.  Ghhh, yess.  Like that.”

“Is it… does it hurt?” she asked timidly.

“Hurt?” he was incredulous.  “No, honey.  It feels amazing.  Why would you think that it hurt?”

“They tell girls… young women… not to… enflame men, because it causes them to suffer.”

He expelled a mirthless laugh.  “Only when left unresolved, and even then, it is often used as a poor excuse for bad behaviour.  You are free to stop or carry on as you wish.  Do you want to stop?”  She shook her head so that her hair brushed against his face.  “Do you want to carry on?”  She nodded, and smiled like they shared a naughty secret.  He wanted to crush her to his chest until she lived inside his ribs.

“What do you want to learn next?”

She blushed, and looked away for a moment, then met his eyes with a courageous tilt of her chin.

“I want to see it.”

A quick exhale, as he understood her meaning.  If he closed his eyes, he would swear the damp earth where they lay was spinning like a top.

“Let me, then.”  She lifted her palm and he unbuttoned with clumsy fingers until his breeches were loose enough to slip over his lean hips.  Lifting and kicking, he was able to strip naked without losing contact with her eyes.

Incapable of restraint, he grasped himself at the root, easing the ache somewhat with his familiar touch.  His lips parted in pleasure, and when she noticed, she looked down.  He should have been embarrassed.  Men did not fondle themselves in polite company, no matter how beautiful or naked that company may be.  But the look on her face was so rapturous, he didn’t feel any shame.

“It’s … umm… it’s beautiful.  May I…?”  He hoped his groan was a sufficiently positive response. 

At first with only her index finger, and then with growing confidence and her entire hand, she caressed his member, even dipping down to rub over the sparse hair of his testicles, which caused his hips to leap towards her in response.  She had lowered her head against his shoulder again and her lips played against the ridge of his stubbled jaw.  He concentrated on capturing enough air to keep himself conscious, and not releasing all over her curious, fine-boned hand.

Finally, unable to remain passive any longer, he urged the arm pinned between their two bodies to twist so that his hand rested over the juncture of her legs.  Her motion ceased, though she did not release him.

“Okay?” he tickled the hair with his middle finger, to show her what he was asking.

“Oh.  Oh, yes.”

Between her thighs was hot, viscous paradise.  Even before he reached her folds, he could feel the moisture that their caresses had created.  Touching her there gently, she emitted a sharp hiss, and her hand’s pattern of tug and slide began again.  Mimicking that rhythm unconsciously, he rubbed and dipped and rubbed by turns, with each pass easing his finger further inside her body, where all was snug and warm.

“Does that feel good, Dana?” he gasped at some point.

“I… I…it’s so much more than I expected.”

“Do you understand how we fit together?  I want to place myself inside you here.”  He knew that some women, upon reaching their marriage bed, had next to no understanding of the mechanics of coitus.  He wanted to believe that she was not such a woman, but he also didn’t want to scare her.

“Do you?” she gasped, bearing down on his finger, which was now buried to the second knuckle.

“God, yes.  So much so I’m afraid I’ll die of pleasure before it even happens.”

“Tell me how … what do I do?  I would not want you to die, even from pleasure.”

He grinned at her wit, then sobered.

“Dana, I will probably hurt you.  I’m sorry.  Maybe we should…”

She shook her head impatiently, then mounted astride his belly in one fluid motion, dislodging his hand.  He looked up at her, agog.  Certainly, he was familiar with the position, but had never experienced it first hand.  Besides the teeth-clenching opportunity to watch her from below as the moon lit her features, it held the benefit of allowing her to advance and retreat as her body permitted.  How she was aware of the option was a circumstance he dared not imagine.

He reached again between her parted thighs and lifted his cock while she eased back to meet him.  Rubbing the head upwards and back against the velvet purse of her sex elicited a strangled moan from one or both of them, and then he spread her with his fingers and guided her to sink down on him slowly.

It wasn’t as though he had never had intercourse before; it was as though he had never existed before.  Everything around him – the stars, the thin clouds made horsetail wispy with wind, the serrated outline of the Sierra Nevada – it was all new like the first morning of Eden.  Inside her body was the first place he had ever felt welcomed without reservation or expectation.

Halfway down, her face crimped in reaction, and he knew he was breaking her maidenhead, but she continued with a determined expression until they were settled together like lock and key.  Her eyes looked down on him clear and bright, and he reached up to stroke her cheek.  She pulled his thumb between her lips to suck on its tip and began to move, awkwardly at first, as she tested the limits of their bodies.  He could barely restrain the urge to thrust against her halting rhythm, but slowly, slowly, she began to rise and fall in gentle waves, tipping her pelvis forward on the downstroke.  He trailed his spit-slick thumb down her throat and began to strum her nipple in the way she seemed to have most enjoyed earlier, and she paused mid-motion to let out a gasp of approval.

“That’s it.  That’s my good girl.  Keep moving, Dana.  God, please keep moving.”

She started up her posting motion again, this time with a sharper arch in the small of her back.  Moaning again, she tipped her head upwards to worship the sky, and he began to lose the battle against the hot flood that threatened to sweep him away. 

“That’s it.  That’sitthat’sitthat’sit.  God, Dana, I can’t…”

Both hands on her hip bones now, pulling her against him in eager handfuls, completely mindless.  He wasn’t going to last.  The strength in her thighs was failing and the fine hairs of her torso glistened with dewy sweat in the moonlight.  A tightening near the base of his spine like a coiling serpent, and then he surged, groaning like an earthquake, and spent himself inside her in wet pulses of forever.

She fell forward against his heaving chest, but her body continued to move and clench without command, rubbing against him another moment until she let out a startled cry.  Around his dwindling member, she grasped like hot mud and he felt his seed spill out of her.  He moaned one last time, then clasped her against him to make certain nothing would ever separate them.


	32. Chapter 32

Yuba River Valley, Sierra Nevada Mountains, September 11, 1845

They awoke in each other’s arms, the odor of wood smoke and sex clinging to the blankets.  She smiled shyly, and he returned it, kissing her softly on her upturned, swollen lips.  He could have delighted in the joining of their bodies once again, but he imagined she was sore, and so he eased from their shared bedroll instead, dressing with haste, and began the preparations for their last descent into the valley below.

She crouched by a nearby stream to slake her thirst, then used its icy water to wash away the remnants of the previous night’s events and ease the sting of losing her virginity.  Sex with Mulder had been revelatory, and memories of his tender intensity made her crave his body once again.  But she wondered what lay next for them.  He had never mentioned marriage, or even love, though she sensed he cared very deeply for her.  In the wilderness, those social conventions had seemed superfluous, but they would soon arrive at Sutter’s Fort, and what passed for civilization in the very Catholic Mexican state of Alta California.  Even if they had not become lovers the previous night, assumptions would be made about a man and a woman, alone on the trail together for many months.  And now, those assumptions were true.  She could even be carrying his child.  She placed a hand protectively across her womb, thinking of the story Mulder told her of growing up without parents who were married.

They had courted through hardship.  It was the fire in which their relationship was forged.  Losses bound them together in a kinship of suffering.  There was no question that they were devoted to one another, as battlefield comrades will always be.  What remained to be seen was whether they could flourish in joy, rather than in the absence of pain; whether they could expand into brightness, rather than run away from darkness.  She wanted to believe that it could be so.

They followed a mountain stream that descended in a series of torrents and waterfalls, gaining strength as it was joined by other tributaries.  Near lunchtime, the stream broadened into a sandy valley, and they stopped to eat the last of their pemmican.   Breaking from their usual habit, he lifted her from the saddle and lowered her to the river bank.  Rather than release her, he cupped her cheek tenderly.

“How are you, Dana?”

“I’m fine.  A bit nervous and excited about finally arriving at our destination.”

“No, I mean .. how are you feeling?  Are you sore?”

“Oh.” She blushed and looked down at her feet, but he drew her chin back upwards.  Her lower lip trembled, and he felt it like a punch in the gut.  If he had injured her, or if she regretted their night together, he wasn’t certain if he would recover.

“I… I ache a little, I suppose.  It seems a small price to pay for so much pleasure.”

A subtle smile bloomed on his previously despondent features.

“I… it pleased you?”

“Well, keep in mind I have no basis for comparison, but as an introduction, it was very promising,” she teased him with newfound bravery.

He let out a gust of relieved breath.  Very slowly, as though he was uncertain how he would be received, he bent to kiss her.  What started out chaste quickly grew hot, like dry tinder exposed to a single spark.  Dana’s hands gripped the muscles of his back, and he drew her closer, forcing her head to tilt backwards sharply. He was bending to taste the pale cream of her neck when she managed to utter, in staccato time to her husky breaths, “We will never make it to the fort, if we spend every mealtime making love.”

The fire behind his eyes gleamed, but he loosened his grasp while keeping her in his arms. “It would be worth the delay, I assure you.”

She shook her head indulgently, then took their cooking pot from Tsiya’s pack, looking for a channel of the stream that was deep enough to draw clear water.  Finding one, she was bending down when a gleam from beneath the surface caught her eye.  At first she thought it was a fish, whose scales were glinting in the sun, but it did not move.  Rolling up one sleeve of Mulder’s shirt, which she still wore along with his trousers, she dipped her hand into the freezing water, grasping by touch as the loosened sand clouded her view.  What emerged in her hand when she finally drew it back was a coarse rock about half the size of her fist.  It was irregular in shape, heavy and cold in her palm.  And it appeared to be a solid lump of gold.

Before her fractured two paths.  She could pocket the rock, bring it to Sutter’s Fort, and barter it for food, lodging, and steerage on the next southbound ship heading around the Horn back to the eastern United States.  The past five months on the trail with Mulder would be boxed away, a memory of adversity and love that she would always remember and secretly cherish.  But she could return to a semblance of the life she once knew, awaiting her father’s return from sea.

Or she could cast her lot with Mulder once again, even without the promise of marriage, and bear any indignities that arose.  It was the first time in her young life where the course of her future was entirely hers to chart.

She approached Mulder where he was preparing a small fire to make coffee.

“I was wondering,” he began without looking at her, “if you would consider accompanying me to San Francisco Solano.  It is only two days’ ride beyond Sutter’s Fort.”

“I thought you said we would spend the winter at Sutter’s Fort?” She was perplexed at this last minute change in plans.  Mulder could be impulsive, but rarely impetuous.

“That is still the plan, but I thought… rather, I wanted to ask you…” he broke off, huffing at his ineloquence.

“Mulder, what is it?”

“I have no idea how this is done correctly, but…” here he took her shaking left hand in his and gazed into her eyes, “Dana Scully, would you do me the honour of becoming my wife?”

An orchestral pause, as though the composer of their unlikely tale had inscribed a fermata over this proposal.

“What’s in San Francisco Solano?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Why do you want me to accompany you there?”

“Oh.  It’s the nearest Catholic mission.  I thought you would prefer to be married by a priest, rather than the nearest ordained lay person.”

Her smile rivalled the California sun in its bright intensity, and the tight band of nerves that had cut off his breath began to loosen.  Still, she had not answered him.

“I’m sorry that I have nothing to offer you, as a token of my sincerity…” he trailed off as she extended her other hand towards him.

“Here, take this.  Perhaps someone at the mission can melt part of it down and form a ring from it.”

“Is that a yes?”

“That’s a yes.”


	33. Epilogue

When they first encountered what is now California, Spanish explorers assumed it was surrounded by water, and named it after a fictional isle of fierce and beautiful female warriors a recent romantic novel had popularized.  Upon further exploration, when no glittering cities of gold and no water route to the East Indies were found, the region was mostly ignored for the next three hundred years.  This amounted to one of the greatest oversights in human history.  Sheltered from the rest of North America by hostile mountain ranges and inhospitable deserts lay the proverbial land of milk and honey.  Warm winds, abundant sunshine, peaceful natives, the largest natural harbour on the eastern Pacific Ocean, and yes, readily accessed gold.   All of these California had in abundance, for those brave and fortunate enough to reach her.  In 1845, there were roughly two thousand such hardy immigrants, most of them Catholic missionaries.  And now their number included Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.  The pair and the region were about to undergo the most tumultuous five years of their respective young histories.  But that, as they say, is another story.


End file.
